A Tel Aviv court on Wednesday sentenced a man to one year in prison for his involvement in a mob attack on an Arab motorist during a spasm of communal violence last year.
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Lahav Nagauker, who was 20-years-old at the time, was convicted of incitement to violence and racism as part of a plea deal that resulted in lighter charges.
His sentencing was the first in the incident that took place last May, when a mob yanked Said Moussa from his car and proceeded to beat him in an assault that left him motionless and bloodied on the ground. Moussa was seriously injured in the attack.
The court said Nagauker was not involved in the actual attack, but threw a bottle at Moussa's car, damaging the rear windshield.
The beating, which took place in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bat Yam, occurred during last year's 11-day conflict with the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip, which ignited an unprecedented wave of violence in mixed cities across Israel.
The unprovoked beating of the motorist was caught on live television, shocking the public. Nagauker was interviewed live moments after the beating, telling a reporter "we came tonight to fight with Arabs ... if we must we will kill them, and if we must we will murder them."
According to the plea deal, Nagauker confessed to the charges against him. His one-year prison term is retroactive to the day he was arrested in May. He was also ordered to pay 2,000 shekels ($645) to a restaurant damaged in the unrest.
Nagauker is among at least 10 people who were charged in the incident. In all, hundreds of people were arrested for the nationwide violence, which saw mobs vandalize property and violently clash, in some cases resulting in deaths. Israeli man, Yigal Yehoshua, 56, died after being beaten by Arab rioters who also threw rocks at him.
Also on Wednesday, a military court sentenced a Palestinian-American man to two life sentences for carrying out a deadly attack on Israelis in Judea and Samaria.
Muntasser Shalaby, 44, carried out a drive-by shooting last May that killed Israeli student Yehuda Guetta and wounded two others. He was arrested days after the attack and Israel Defense Forces demolished his house weeks later.
The court also required Shalaby to pay 2.5 million shekels ($800,000) in damages.
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