Three Israelis have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for looting the Nova music festival just one day after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre that left hundreds dead at the site, in a case that judges described as a profound moral failure amid national trauma.

Liran Yakubov, Netanel Aviv, and Oz Ruham were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 36 to 40 months and ordered to pay fines. The three, residents of Beersheba, were convicted of entering the festival grounds on October 8—after the area had been declared a closed military zone—and stealing personal belongings from victims and survivors.

More than 370 people were murdered when Hamas terrorists stormed the festival near the Gaza border, carrying out killings, kidnappings, and acts of extreme brutality. Israeli authorities said the defendants exploited the chaos and devastation that followed, lying to gain access to the site and breaking into abandoned vehicles left behind by festivalgoers who were either killed or fled for their lives.

Prosecutors said the men stole items including a laptop, credit cards, identification documents, and other personal property. In her sentencing remarks, Shosh Sheetrit of the Beersheba Magistrate Court condemned the acts as a betrayal that went beyond ordinary criminal conduct.

“The immense joy of life that was abruptly cut short at the Nova Festival became a tragic symbol of national loss,” Sheetrit said, according to Channel 12. “Alongside the unimaginable horror of murder, abuse and kidnapping, another unimaginable phenomenon was discovered: looting by citizens of the country.”

She described the defendants’ actions as “extreme opportunism” carried out under the cover of a terrorist attack, adding that the crimes represented “a complete betrayal of human dignity and basic social solidarity.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)