The Beersheba District Court sentenced 31-year-old Beersheba resident Eliran Tzur to five years in prison after he admitted and was convicted, as part of a plea agreement, of a series of sexual offenses against 16 minors whom he contacted through WhatsApp groups.
Tzur was also ordered to pay a total of NIS 55,500 in compensation to the complainants. The decision was handed down on March 25 and was cleared for publication on Wednesday.
According to the amended indictment - which Tzur admitted to - he joined various WhatsApp groups, some of which included minors, located girls’ phone numbers through the groups, including through profile pictures, and contacted them through WhatsApp messages and voice calls.
The offenses were carried out between June 22 and August 14, 2024, the day of his arrest.
The court convicted Tzur, based on his admission, of multiple offenses, including causing a minor to commit an indecent act, attempted causing of indecent acts by minors, sexual harassment, attempted sexual harassment, threats, aggravated assault of a police officer, and aggravated witness tampering.
Beersheba man gets five years for threatening, sexually harassing minors
In some cases, Tzur called the minors repeatedly, including dozens of times. In one case, he called one of the girls more than 150 times over less than two weeks. In other cases, he falsely presented himself as a 16-year-old boy, instructed the girls to enter their rooms alone, close or lock the door, speak quietly, and follow his directions.
According to the amended indictment, during the calls, Tzur made repeated sexual comments to the girls, instructed some of them to touch themselves, asked others to send him photos, and threatened some of them when they refused to cooperate.
In one case, he threatened a minor that if she did not follow his sexual demands, he would come to her home. In another, he threatened to publish what he claimed to have saved from their conversations. In a separate incident, after his arrest, Tzur called one of the complainants from a public phone at a detention facility and told her to withdraw her police complaint, threatening to blow up her home if she did not.
Judge Alon Gabizon wrote in the sentencing decision that Tzur “approached minors on social networks” and exploited “their young age and innocence” in order to conduct sexual conversations, receive images of their bodies, and obtain videos documenting sexual acts he instructed them to perform. With some of them, the judge noted, Tzur also tried to arrange meetings.
Gabizon wrote that Tzur was not deterred by the law, noting that he committed the offenses shortly after being released from prison and while suspended sentences were still hanging over him.
“The severity of the circumstances of the offenses is also prominent in this case in light of the variety of offenses of which the defendant was convicted, and their different levels of severity, and the large number of victims - 16 minors,” Gabizon wrote.
He added that the severity was heightened by the young ages of the girls, between 11 and 15 and a half, and the age gap between them and Tzur, who was around 30.
Gabizon further wrote that Tzur acted with a degree of sophistication, deceit, and manipulation, while exploiting the girls’ innocence, and that the ease with which the offenses were carried out through WhatsApp added to the seriousness of the case.
The prosecution had asked the court to sentence Tzur to eight years in prison, as well as a suspended sentence and significant compensation for the victims. It argued that the offenses harmed the minors’ bodies and minds, their security, dignity, privacy, bodily autonomy, and sense of personal safety in the online space. It also argued that sentencing in such cases should be made more severe, given the increasing prevalence of such offenses, particularly against minors.
The court was also presented with a victim impact report regarding one of the girls. According to the sentencing decision, the report described a deterioration in her emotional and behavioral state after the assault, including withdrawal, loss of trust, sleep disturbances, and fear of being around people without the accompaniment of family or friends.
A professional risk assessment found Tzur’s sexual dangerousness to be high. The Probation Service had examined the possibility of placing him in a therapeutic hostel for sex offenders, but the court ultimately sentenced him to prison.
Tzur was sentenced to 50 months in prison, with two suspended sentences from a previous case activated consecutively for an additional 10 months, bringing the total sentence to 60 months. He was also given suspended sentences and ordered to pay compensation to the complainants.
The parties have 45 days to appeal to the Supreme Court.