IDF court sentences terrorist who killed Staff Sgt. Amit Ben Yigal in 2020 to life imprisonment

Nizmi Abu Bakar, the terrorist who killed IDF Staff Sgt. Amit Ben Yigal in 2020, was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison by the Samaria Military Court.

Additionally, Bakar was convicted of obstruction of justice and ordered to pay over NIS four million in compensation.

Ben Yigal, aged 21, served as a combat soldier in the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion.

On May 12, 2020, during a security operation to arrest wanted individuals in the West Bank Palestinian village of Ya'bad, Bakar threw a half-brick at IDF soldiers from a nearby rooftop.

The brick, weighing between nine and eleven kilograms, struck Ben Yigal. He was evacuated by helicopter to the hospital to receive medical treatment, but succumbed to his wounds.

After throwing the brick, Bakar fled and feigned being asleep in his home in an attempt to hinder security forces from locating him.

Once Israel’s security forces left the scene, Bakar returned to collect the fragments of the brick and discarded them at the side of the road in an attempt to obstruct the investigation.

In August 2020, the High Court of Justice halted the IDF's planned demolition of Bakar's home.

On May 11, 2026, the military court accepted the military prosecution's position, following testimony from prosecution witnesses and the terrorist himself, and convicted him of committing the attack.

Enlisted to Golani despite being an only child

"Amit was an only child. Therefore, he was given the option not to enlist in a combat unit,” Ben Yigal’s father, Baruch, shared in an article published in December 2021 on the IDF’s website. “I hoped he would choose not to, yet when he went on his school trip to Poland and visited the camps, he called me and said something I will never forget.”

“‘Dad, you’re the son of a Holocaust survivor. Your dad didn’t have an army to protect him. Today, now that our people have a country, I want to do everything I can to protect it at all costs. “I want to enlist in the Golani Brigade,” Baruch recalled his son saying.

He shared that after Ben Yigal returned from Poland, the two negotiated for two months over where he would enlist before Baruch gave in and allowed him to join a combat unit.

At the time the article was published, Baruch shared that 23 children across Israel were named after his son.

 “There is a small forest of carob trees planted by volunteers in Northern Israel,” he said. “Next to Amit’s grave, we planted an olive tree, the tree of peace. Amit was a child of peace.”

“Amit was a hero, and he died as a hero. He will never be forgotten.”