Description

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- A 17-year-old Palestinian boy being held in Israeli prison will be allowed a five-hour leave in order to take an exam that will allow him to get his high school diploma, a prisoner rights group said Friday.

Mufid al-Haj, a lawyer from the Palestinian Prisoner's Society, told Ma'an that the group had managed to obtain permission from a Jerusalem court for Fathi Najada, 17, to not miss the exam which would allow him to graduate.

Mufid al-Haj said that this was the first time such an allowance had been made for a Palestinian teenager being held in Israeli prison.

Fathi will be released for five and a half hours on Aug. 23 on a 500-shekel ($140) bail as well as another third-party bail for 5,000 shekels ($1,400).

Fathi was detained in June by Israeli forces, one of hundreds of Palestinian children being held in Israeli prisons.

In June 2012, it was estimated that 202 children were being held in Israeli prisons, a number that has probably increased as Israeli forces arrested more than 1,500 in a wide-reaching arrest campaign across the West Bank and East Jerusalem over summer.

More than 6,500 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli prisons, including more than 400 indefinitely without charge or trial.