Israel sentences Palestinian youth to 9.5 years in jail

Rasa - Israel's supreme court has sentenced a Palestinian youth accused of alleged attempt on life of two Israelis to 9.5 years in jail down from an earlier sentence of 12 years in prison.

News ID: 431584

Date: 10 August 2017 - 23:43

RNA - Leah Tsemel, the lawyer of the Palestinian, said on Thursday that the sentence was reduced to nine and a half years by the court. She added that a 180,000 shekel ($47,000) fine will remain in place.

"It is not the best we wanted, but that's what we got," media outlets quoted the lawyer as saying.

Last November, an Israeli court sentenced Ahmad Saleh Manasra, now 15, to 12 years in jail on the charge of attempting to murder a 20-year-old man and a 12-year-old boy in the illegal Israeli settlement of Pisgat Zeev in East Jerusalem al-Quds on October 12, 2015.

Manasra was also ordered to pay 80,000 shekels ($21,000) in compensation to the Israeli man and 100,000 shekels ($26,260) to the Israeli boy.

The Palestinian teenager was accused of carrying out the assault along with his 15-year-old cousin Hassan, who was fatally shot by Israeli forces.

Video footage released on social media networks in the wake of the attack showed Manasra bleeding heavily on the ground as some Israeli bystanders shouted a mixed of Arabic and Hebrew obscenities at him.

He is among scores of Palestinian children who are being held at Israeli jails.

In April, figures released by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club showed that at least 300 Palestinian children had been arrested by Israeli forces since the beginning of the year.

The rights group released the figure in a report that documented a series of violent raids in which Palestinian children were detained, beaten and abused.

The Palestinian advocacy group's report slammed the Tel Aviv regime for its atrocities against children all over the occupied Palestinian territories.

The occupied Palestinian territories have witnessed new tensions ever since Israeli forces introduced restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015.

More than 300 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces in the ongoing tensions since the beginning of October 2015.

847/940