A day of courtrooms and handcuffs: kidnapping, drugs, and a fatal crash lawsuit

Heirs of a pilot killed in a 2019 helicopter crash sue the state for NIS 18.5 million, as police rescue a bound man from a Hura warehouse.

A day of courtrooms and handcuffs: kidnapping, drugs, and a fatal crash lawsuit — Five years after a Robinson R-44 helicopter crashed in a field near Kfar Yehezkel, the heirs of pilot Yaakov David filed a negligence lawsuit for approximately NIS 18.5 million against the State of Israel and the Israel Electric Corporation in the Central District Court in Lod.[^1] The suit alleges that the helicopter struck thin pull cables that could not be seen—a claim that will test how far liability extends when infrastructure and aviation safety intersect over a rural landscape. In Hura, police officers from the Ayarot station rescued a man found bound and handcuffed in a business warehouse.[^2] Business owners had imprisoned him after suspecting him of theft. Superintendent Yahav Siman called it "a serious incident where a person was held against his will under harsh conditions." The rescue unfolded hours after a Wolt courier, Shlomo Reuven, pulled scissors and stabbed an Egged bus driver in Ramat Gan following a dispute over road use—two cases that underscore how quickly civilian disputes in Israel escalate into violent confinement or assault.[^3] The Jerusalem District Court sentenced Matan Shaul to 30 months in prison for impersonating a Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital employee and committing indecent acts on three patients, including a minor.[^4] The prosecution had sought 45 months, but Judge Joya Skappa Shapira ruled that Shaul exploited the patients' vulnerable state—a sentencing gap that may invite appeal. Meanwhile, the remand of Liel Ifargan, the suspect in the murder of 7-year-old Hillel Mordechai Dadon in Beit Shemesh, was extended until September 14, as his attorney argues that no new evidence has been presented.[^5] Ataf Sabihi, convicted of murdering teenager Danny Katz and soldier Daphna Carmon, died in hospital today.[^6] He was 68 and an inmate at Rimunim-Ofek prison; the circumstances of his death are under privacy restrictions. The question of what—if anything—the state owes the families of victims like Yaakov David and Hillel Dadon remains unresolved in the courts, while the suspects in the Hura warehouse face charges that will test the line between citiz