An Israeli court on Monday handed down 30-month prison sentences to two police officers for leaving a sick Palestinian prisoner to die on the side of the road.

In 2008, Baruch Peretz and Asaf Yakutieli left car thief Omar Abu Jariban, who has been critically injured in a previous car accident, by a deserted West Bank road at night.

Jariban's body was found two days later. The two officers were indicted for causing death by negligence.

"I find it hard to understand how, despite being fully aware of the detainee's physical and mental state, they were unable to see and understand the distress of a man born in God's image," Jerusalem judge Haim Lee-Ran said during the sentencing.

In 2008, Jariban - an illegal immigrant from Gaza - was seriously hurt in a car accident.

After being admitted to a hospital and suffering from neurological injuries, he was released for transfer to a jail.

The indictment charged the two officers with abandoning Jabarin at the side of the road near an army camp north of Jerusalem, where he was found dead from dehydration two days later.

Attorneys for Peretz and Yakutieli said they would appeal the sentences.