The District Court sentenced Nidal Dagar this week to life imprisonment plus an additional two years of actual prison time after he was convicted of the aggravated murder of Rasha Sitawi in the town of Maghar in 2021. In its ruling, the court detailed the harrowing circumstances of the crime, which occurred inside the victim's home. According to the judgment, Dagar premeditated the act, using a scooter without license plates and a firearm to shoot Sitawi at close range.
The incident took place in the presence of the victim's daughter, who was about ten years old at the time and attempted to take cover behind her mother during the shooting. The court, presided over by President Esther Hellman, ruled that committing the murder in front of the minor constitutes a separate and distinct offense of child abuse, beyond the act of murder itself. This finding led to the decision for cumulative sentencing, exceeding the statutory life sentence for the murder charge.
Beyond the imprisonment, Dagar was sentenced to a 12-month driver's license suspension and ordered to pay financial compensation to the victim's family in the amount of 258,000 shekels—the statutory maximum. The panel of judges ordered a detailed distribution of the compensation: 100,000 shekels for the daughter who witnessed the event, an additional 100,000 shekels to be divided among Sitawi's two other minor children, and the remainder divided among her six siblings.
It was ordered that the funds for the minors be deposited into a dedicated account, accessible before they reach adulthood only for the purpose of financing urgent mental health treatment. The motive for the murder, despite initial police assessments regarding the possibility of a contract killing, was not proven or clarified during the trial. The defendant's criminal record includes a 14-month prison sentence for arms trafficking in 2017. The ruling sharpens the judicial approach regarding the recognition of psychological damage caused to children exposed to severe domestic violence, treating it as grounds for harsher sentencing beyond what is customary in standard homicide cases.