A traffic court in Petah Tikva on Monday sentenced Carol Fesler to two years’ imprisonment – one year to be served behind bars and the remainder suspended – for fleeing the scene after striking four-year-old Rafael Edna in Netanya in May 2023, a case that triggered nationwide protests and an unusually protracted legal battle over what, precisely, prosecutors could prove.
Deputy Chief Justice Tal Pery of the Central District traffic court also disqualified Fesler from holding a driver’s license for life, retroactive to May 8, 2023, and ordered her to pay NIS 10,000 in compensation to the family – a sum the court stressed was symbolic and could not reflect the value of a life.
At the defense’s request, the court delayed the start of Fesler’s prison sentence until April 15 to give her time to appeal. She is required to report to the Neveh Tirza women’s prison in Ramle by 9 a.m. that day, after signing a NIS 25,000 commitment guaranteeing that she will appear.
The sentence closes one chapter of a case that has repeatedly returned to the headlines since the crash on Ben-Gurion Boulevard, when Rafael and his grandfather, Tamir Tzagaye, were crossing the roadway and were hit by a vehicle.
Rafael was critically injured, hospitalized at Schneider Children’s Medical Center for Israel in Petah Tikva, and died on May 10, 2023; his grandfather suffered a broken hand.
Fesler's conviction
Fesler was not convicted of causing the crash itself; the court emphasized that the indictment did not attribute responsibility to her for the collision or Rafael’s death, pointing to findings that the child and his grandfather crossed at a dangerous location not designated for pedestrians. But, the court held, that did not lessen her criminal responsibility for what came next: continuing to drive without stopping, without checking the child’s condition, and without calling emergency services.
According to the sentencing decision, the court found that Fesler was aware she had hit a person, citing the damage to her vehicle – including a broken left-side light and a left-side mirror torn off – and her conduct afterward, including driving home and making calls while “agitated,” without reporting the incident to police or returning to the scene.
In setting out its broader reasoning, the court framed the hit-and-run – “abandonment after injury” – as more than a traffic offense, describing it as a profound moral breach rooted in a basic duty to stop and help, including where the driver is not at fault for the accident itself.
The ruling also stressed that age and personal circumstances do not provide immunity from meaningful punishment and noted Fesler’s decision to fight the case through a full evidentiary trial – rather than taking responsibility – as a factor weighing against leniency.
Prosecution pushes for longer prison term
The prosecution had pushed for a substantially longer prison term, seeking three years of imprisonment alongside additional penalties, while the defense urged the court to avoid incarceration and impose community-service-style alternatives, citing health, age, and what it called a public “lynch” in the media.
The procedural history has been central to how the public – and Rafael’s family – has experienced the case. Fesler had previously admitted the hit-and-run offense, but at sentencing, her counsel argued she lacked the required mental element because she did not know she had struck a person; Judge Pery accepted that argument at the time, vacated the conviction, and ordered a full evidentiary retrial. After hearing testimony, the court rejected Fesler’s account and convicted her again.
Outside the court on Monday, relatives voiced fury at what they described as a system that, in their view, still failed to deliver accountability, while also claiming that the driver was actually Fesler’s daughter and not Fesler herself. In one exchange reported by Ynet, family members turned their anger on the prosecution moments after sentencing, saying, “She will appeal and won’t go to prison.... She wasn’t the driver, and you lied to us.”
The family has long alleged that Fesler’s daughter was the driver – a claim that has not been accepted by investigators or the court in this criminal case – and has repeatedly criticized earlier prosecutorial decisions that did not include a charge for causing Rafael’s death, a decision that officials said was grounded in traffic investigators’ findings.
Rafael’s mother, Shimonah Edna, has been among the most prominent voices pressing for prison time. After the October 2025 conviction, she told Ynet she wanted Fesler to “pay... with prison,” saying the family’s fight was not over.