Supreme Court Rejects Petition Challenging Closure of Investigation into Mousa Hassouna’s Killing in May 2021, Upholding Impunity for the Killing of Palestinians
Today, 30 September 2025, the Supreme Court of Israel rejected the petition filed by the family of Mousa Hassouna, who was killed in Lydd (Lod) on 10 May 2021. The petition challenged the Attorney General’s decision to reject an appeal against the closure of the criminal investigation into the five suspects involved in the shooting that killed Hassouna and injured two other Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Click here to read more about the killing and the appeal documenting the police’s flawed investigation aimed at clearing the suspects.
Click here to read the [Hebrew] decision
In a very brief and unsubstantiated decision, the Court stated, “We are of the view that there is no basis for our intervention [...] particularly when the decision is grounded in factual and evidentiary findings.” The Court further asserted that it is “convinced that the decisions ultimately made by the prosecution were well founded and were reached based on a professional and substantive approach.”
The Supreme Court did not address the detailed allegations raised by the legal team in the petition or during a hearing held earlier today, where Adalah Attorney Nareman Shehadeh-Zoabi and private Attorney Khaled Zabarqa highlighted serious investigative flaws by the police, incomplete ballistic analyses, the failure to interview Palestinian witnesses, and early police statements raising concerns about the investigation’s lack of impartiality.
This included video evidence uncovered by Adalah suggesting that prominent Israeli political figures exerted improper pressure on the police to close the investigation. Despite the gravity of these allegations, the Attorney General rejected the appeal in 2024, relying almost entirely on the suspects’ own accounts and failing to meaningfully engage with evidence of external interference. In responding to the petition, the state acknowledged that the video footage was indeed “uncomfortable,” but argued that, since the police had conducted the necessary ballistic and forensic examinations, the footage was irrelevant. The state further claimed that public statements by then-Minister of Public Security, Amir Ohana, including a social media post on 12 May 2021, were likewise irrelevant, as he did not hold formal authority over the case.
During the hearing, the legal team demanded an independent investigation into potential political interference, emphasizing the legal obligation to ensure prosecutorial impartiality. The Court, however, declined to intervene, effectively endorsing a process that failed to address documented evidence of undue political influence.
The Supreme Court’s decision was issued in the same week that seven Palestinians – five citizens of Israel and two residents of the occupied West Bank – were convicted and sentenced to 12 to 14 years in prison for the killing of a Jewish Israeli citizen in Lydd during the May 2021 events, after stones were thrown at his car. They were convicted despite the fact that it was never established which of the defendants had thrown the fatal stone. This stands in stark contrast to the impunity granted to Israeli Jewish suspects in the killing of Mousa Hassouna.
Adalah Attorney Nareman Shehadeh-Zoabi commented:
“The Supreme Court’s decision, which blindly defers to the prosecution, ignores the grave investigative failures and evidence of political interference we exposed. By refusing to even engage with these concerns, the Court reinforces a system of impunity for the killing and injuring of Palestinians, whether at the hands of the police or Israeli Jewish citizens.”
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