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JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli authorities released prisoner Muhammad Dirbas, 25, on Tuesday after completing a three-and-a-half year sentence.

Hundreds of locals and friends welcomed Dirbas back to his home village of al-Issawiya in occupied East Jerusalem

Dirbas had previously spent two years in Israeli jails for throwing rocks and taking part in a protest to support the Gaza Strip.

He spent his sentence between different Israeli jails including Nafha, Rimon, Megiddo and Beersheba.

In November 2014, a bill was approved by Netanyahu's cabinet that would enable Israeli courts to sentence an individual for up to 20 years for rock throwing.

The bill was formed amid waves of violent tensions in Jerusalem between July and November last year.

During this period, al-Issawiya, which lies in a valley east of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, had been the scene of near-daily clashes after Jewish extremists burned Palestinian teenager Muhammed Abu Khudeir alive in revenge for the killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank.

Palestinians living in occupied East Jerusalem face routine arrests, with 77 detained from the area during February 2015, according to Jerusalem Committee of Relatives of Prisoners and Detainees.

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