Judge rejects 'eye for an eye' defence over death of Jewish extremist Eden Natan-Zada who killed four Arabs in 2005

An Israeli court sentenced seven Arab citizens to prison terms of between eight months and two years for their part in the lynching of a soldier who went on a deadly shooting spree in 2005.

Eden Natan-Zada was a Jewish extremist who went awol from his military unit in 2005 before embarking on a shooting spree on a bus in a northern Arab town. He killed four Arabs before running out of ammunition. An angry mob then beat him to death.

A Haifa district court judge said that despite the soldier's actions, a democracy could not tolerate vigilante justice and rejected an "eye for an eye" defence. After the verdict on Thursday, Israeli Arabs hurled stones toward police in protest at what they called unjust punishment.

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, a two-year-old girl was moderately wounded when she was struck in the head by a stone hurled at the car in which she was traveling. A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said the attack appeared to be nationalistic in nature as Jewish vehicles are often targeted in the area by youths in nearby Arab villages.

The baby girl was taken to hospital, where the mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, called on authorities to crack down on a recent wave of stone-throwing attacks in the city. "It's about time we start treating a stone as a weapon," he told Israel's Channel 10 TV.

The prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, wished the girl a speedy recovery. "We will find these criminals and bring them to justice," he said.