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Palestinian teen handed 18-year prison sentence after being convicted of stabbing Israeli

12:00 Jun 5 2016 Jerusalem

Palestinian teen handed 18-year prison sentence after being convicted of stabbing Israeli
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JERUSALEM (Ma’an) -- An Israeli district court on Sunday sentenced a Palestinian teenager to 18 years in prison after he was convicted of stabbing and moderately wounding an Israeli in Jerusalem in February 2015.

He was also convicted for throwing stones, a pipe bomb, and Molotov cocktails at Israeli forces in unrelated incidents.

Lawyer Muhammad Mahmoud of prisoner rights group Addameer told Ma’an that Mahmoud Abu Isba was sentenced to 18 years in prison and ordered to pay 100,000 shekels ($26,023) in damages to the wounded Israeli. Different sources reported Abu Isba as being between 17 and 19 years old.

The court decision also included a three-year probation upon his release with an automatic five-month prison sentence upon violation of the probation.

Abu Isba, from the town of Bir Zeit in the central occupied West Bank district of Ramallah, was detained in February 2015 after he stabbed an ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israeli man in west Jerusalem. The Palestinian teen was then wrestled to the ground by passersby.

Distant, black-and-white security camera footage showed a young man waving his arms and swiping towards pedestrians, who then ran clear of him at a busy intersection near Jerusalem's city hall.

Jerusalem’s mayor Nir Barkat, was then seen walking across the intersection, and lunged toward Abu Isba, pinning him to the ground, before other passersby gathered around him.

The wounded Israeli was rushed to hospital but was not seriously hurt, medical officials told reporters at the time. Israeli police added that Abu Isba did not have authorization to reside in Israel.

After the sentencing, Israeli newspaper Ynet quoted the Jerusalem district attorney’s office as saying that "handing down such a severe verdict sends a clear message that anyone committing an act of terror with a murderous intent will spend many years behind bars, even if they happen to be a minor.”

Since a wave of unrest began in October, Israel has come under criticism for passing a series of amendments and proposing various laws aimed at targeting Palestinian youth with disproportionately harsh sentences, including 10 years in prison for stone throwing.

In response to the November amendment prisoners’ rights group Addameer and Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCIP) issued a joint statement condemning the move as "discriminately" targeting Palestinians.

“Israeli extremists and settlers on the other hand rely on their government to ignore their attacks against Palestinians. Israel’s record of seldom holding perpetrators accountable speaks for itself,” the group said.

According to the statement, the policy changes were seen as “part of a wider crackdown by Israeli authorities to quash unrest sweeping across Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West Bank.”

More than 200 Palestinians and nearly 30 Israelis have been killed since October. The unrest has been characterized by a number of small-scale attacks, the majority of which have targeted Israeli military personnel.
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