(Communicated by the Justice Ministry, Southern District)
The State Attorney's Office (Southern District, Criminal Division), today (Thursday, 21 June 2018), in Be'er Sheva District Court, filed an indictment against Mahmoud Omar, 20, a resident of the Gaza Strip, for membership in a terrorist organization, taking part in military exercises and weapons training for terrorist purposes, rioting, attempted infiltration, and attempting to damage IDF property and attempted arson which constitute acts of terrorism.
The indictment attests that on 14 May 2018 the accused set out to participate in the 'March of Return' which was carried out adjacent to the Israeli border near Shuja'iyya in the Gaza Strip. As he was participating in a disturbance, his mother called him and said that his sister Maryam's then eight-month-old daughter Laila al-Ghandour had died. When the accused returned home he discovered that Laila had died of a blood disease similar to that which caused the 2017 death of the deceased's brother, Salim al-Ghandour, who was of a similar age.
The accused later learned that his aunt Maryam and her husband Anwar had falsely told the media that Laila had died as a result of inhaling tear gas that IDF soldiers had used to disperse demonstrations in the border area because Hamas leader Yahya Sanwar had paid them NIS 8,000 to say that Laila had died as a result of inhaling tear gas during the disturbances.