Given that even at that time it had not been clarified exactly what the exact sums were returned to the plaintiffs, whether by way of restitution amounts or through the right of initiation, in the framework of the hearing held on April 10, 2024, I instructed Attorney Menorah to submit an orderly notice, which includes the position of the parties on the matter. On May 16, 2024, counsel for Menorah filed a notice regarding the restitution amounts, noting that the aforesaid was not agreed upon by all the parties.
On January 31, 2024, Menorah filed a motion to attach as evidence a transcript of a recording that was made between plaintiff No. 6, Mr. Benya Sidon, and the transfer of the Goren hearing place, in 2012 or 2013. This is against the background of the fact that the existence of the recording was only known to the Menorah Attorney General during the interrogation of Mr. Zidon. In my decision of February 7, 2024, I permitted the attachment of the transcript of the recording as evidence for the reasons included in the decision.
Dates of the interrogations of the parties and the witnesses on their behalf
Against the background of the constraints of one of the parties' counsel and some of the witnesses, as well as taking into account the special state of emergency declared in the Minister of Justice's announcement of October 12, 2023, as well as against the background of a mediation process in which the parties took part, a significant part of the evidentiary hearings scheduled from time to time were canceled, in a manner that caused the prolongation of the proceeding. Even the plaintiffs' counsel and Goren's relocation of the hearing place were burdened with long and tedious interrogations, often unnecessarily.
At the hearing on January 8, 2023, plaintiff 3, Mr. Yaakov Horowitz, and plaintiff 5, Avishai Junger, were interrogated.
At the hearing on February 27, 2023, the transfer of the venue of the hearing was discussed by Raphael Harlap, legal advisor at the Jerusalem Land Authority; Plaintiff No. 4, Ariel Cohen's Hearing Place; Mr. Shimon Cohen, Deputy Mayor of Ashkelon at the time; Mr. Moshe Horowitz, son of plaintiff 3.