Yosef Haim Ben-David, one of the perpetrators convicted for the 2014 murder of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir, has died in custody at the age of 42, the Israel Prison Service announced on Thursday. Ben-David, who was serving a life sentence plus an additional 20 years, fell ill and was subsequently taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Ben-David was convicted in 2016 by a panel of judges at the Jerusalem District Court, which determined that he had orchestrated the abduction and killing of Abu Khdeir. The court found that Ben-David directed the assault and gave orders to his two accomplices, relatives identified only by their initials, A. and Y., who were juveniles aged 16 and 17 at the time. The three had kidnapped Abu Khdeir near a mosque in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat, where they proceeded to beat and strangle him before setting his body on fire in the Jerusalem Forest.

Authorities apprehended the three several days after the attack. During subsequent interrogations by Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, the suspects confessed and reenacted the crime.

The Israeli government officially recognizes Abu Khdeir as a victim of terrorism. His murder was widely perceived as a retaliatory act following the abduction and killing of three Israeli yeshiva students earlier that summer. The killing provoked significant unrest and violent clashes throughout East Jerusalem.

In addition to Ben-David’s sentence, Y. received a life term plus three years, while A. was sentenced to 21 years in prison. The death of Ben-David marks the end of his incarceration in connection with a case that remains emblematic of the heightened tensions and cycles of violence between Israelis and Palestinians during that period.