A military court in Samaria on September 13, 2011 sentenced Hakim Awad, 18, of Awarta to five consecutive life sentences for the murder of five members of the Fogel Family during a terrorist attack in Itamar in March.
Ruth Fogel was in the bathroom when Awad, a high school student, and his partner Amjad Awad, 19, who worked as a laborer in Israel, slit the throats of her husband Udi and their three-month-old daughter Hadas, whose body was left beside that of her murdered father. Awad slaughtered Ruth as she came out of the bathroom.
Never a soldier, unarmed, Ruthi, somehow with her body, blocked the door of her two young sons so the terrorists did not enter that room. They then moved into a bedroom where Ruth and Udi’s sons Yoav (11) and Elad (4) were sleeping and slit the throat of Yoav and stabbed Elad in the heart.
Despite the fact that Awad, a high school student, had confessed his part in the murder to security services and the court, Judge Lt-Colonel Menahem Lieberman had nevertheless decided to examine detailed evidence gathered by the prosecution, including forensic findings, in order to rule out that Awad had lied about his part in the crime for "glory". DNA evidence at the scene of the massacre was used to prove the guilt of Awad.
In court, Awad always smiled at the camera. Awad said he has “no regrets” and flashed the "V" sign for victory while he was leaving the courthouse. “I am a person like you, I have no mental condition, I never had a serious illness,” Awad said to the judges. His smile was sincere. Awad’s smile conveys unleashed hatred, contempt, physical aggression, the desire to expel, to destroy, and to eliminate the Jews.
The terrorists expressed no regret for the brutal stabbings of the parents, the baby, and two other young children, but said that they did regret not having killed two other children, Roi, 8, and Shai, 2 because they had not known these kids were in another room.
To better understand how an 18 year old boy can become such a hater of Jews, one just needs to look at the incitement of Palestinian society against Jews and the glorification of the Shahid as a martyr who sacrifices his life to meeting a religious commandment. The shahid is considered one whose place in Paradise is promised according to verses in the Qur'an.
Official Palestinian Authority (PA) channels and Hamas in Gaza often turn their rhetoric against Israel into genuine anti-Semitic incitement, is an inseparable part of the fabric of life in the Palestinian Authority. Thus, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic messages are regularly heard in both the private and official media and in mosque sermons, and are studied in school textbooks. The incitement encourages attacks against civilians, raises mass-murderers to the status of national heroes through giving terrorists an honored status and making them models for emulation in Palestinian society, both in the media and via ceremonies held by institutions affiliated with the PA.
Just days before the March 11 killing of the Fogel family, on 9 March 2011, Abu Mazen's advisor Sabri Saidam, delivered a speech in which he emphasized that Palestinian weapons must be turned towards Israel. He demanded that the Palestinian people be attentive to the living conditions of martyrs' families and said that the anniversary of the death of Dalal Mughrabi (one of the perpetrators of 1978 coastal highway massacre) should be marked by inaugurating a square in her name in the city of El-Bireh.
On 6 March 2011, the PA's official newspaper, Al Hayat Al-Jadida, published an item to the effect that the management of a youth club in Ramallah planned to hold a soccer tournament in memory of Wafa Idris, a suicide bomber.
So it is no surprise that other Palestinians passed out sweets to celebrate Fogel Family massacre.
Still there is one question to be answered. Why did a Jew hater who claims to be ready to be a shahid (martyr) surrender without a fight and even got rid of the two automatic rifles he removed from the community of Itamar? Apparently he knew that most Jews would not kill him as revenge for the massacre of other Jews and that he always had the possibility of eventually being freed in a prisoner exchange that Jews are ready to do in return for a hostage. So while declaring his readiness to die, when given the opportunity, he still preferred to remain alive - but as a hero to the Palestinians.
