After more than 8 years of waiting for justice, the settler convicted of killing Aisha al-Rabi in 2018 has been sentenced to 13 years in prison. Aisha was killed after he threw a large stone at her car; she was killed in front of her husband and children who were in the vehicle. He was also ordered to pay her family NIS 258,000 in compensation.
Aisha was the wife of Yaqoub Rabi, a PCFF Member & Community Manager. Please take a minute to read his story and thoughts on this verdict:
Today… After eight years of waiting
Since 2018, I have been carrying an incomparable pain in my heart, since the day I lost my wife. Aisha, who was a woman, a mother, and so loved by her family and children.
Eight years have passed, but Aisha’s absence has not passed.
Her children have grown up, life has changed, but her place in our home and hearts remains empty, and no one can fill it.
We have waited a long time for this moment. All I have sought throughout these years was justice – for the man who murdered my wife and took a mother away from my children – to be punished for his crime. Today, I am not standing here out of a desire for revenge, but out of a desire for justice.
Sentencing will not bring Aisha back to life, will not return my children to their mother, and will not erase the years of pain. But I needed to know that the person who killed her was being held accountable.
It can say that a human life is precious, that Aisha’s blood will not be forgotten, and that even if justice is delayed – it must find its way.
My message to the world today: don't turn the victims into mere numbers in the pages of history. Behind every victim is a family, children, memories, and entire lives changed forever.
Aisha… You left us, but you never left our hearts.
Your name will remain with us, and your story will continue to be a testimony that we chose justice and peace, despite all the pain.
May your memory be blessed, Aisha. You will remain alive in our hearts as long as we live.”
—Yaqoub Rabi, bereaved Palestinian husband
For us, justice means that all life is afforded the same value and protection, with equal rights for all. Justice does not end with holding the person who killed Aisha accountable for his actions. It means working towards a reality in which the value of a human life is not determined by identity or nationality.
Justice means ending the occupation and systems of discrimination and racism, breaking the cycle of violence, and building a future in which Palestinians and Israelis live in equality, freedom, dignity, security, and peace.
