Description

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- A Palestinian from Shufat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem was detained on Thursday for allegedly being in possession of a knife, according to the Israeli police.

Israeli police spokesperson Luba al-Samri said in a statement that a Jerusalemite Palestinian in his 20s from Shufat refugee camp was detained after Israeli police found a knife in his possession.

According to al-Samri, a woman from the refugee camp had called the Israeli police after seeing a young Palestinian man boarding a bus carrying “suspicious objects.”

Israeli police had tracked the bus, stopped it, and searched the man, when they found a knife hidden in a bag of cotton, al-Samri said.
The Palestinian was detained and transferred for interrogations, she added.

Scores of Palestinians have been detained in the past two years for alleged possession of knives since a wave of unrest began in October 2015.

While Israeli leaders often point to Palestinian “incitement” as the cause of such cases, and often attempt to connect them to the so-called “war on terror,” Palestinians have instead cited the daily frustrations and routine Israeli military violence imposed by Israel's nearly half century occupation of the Palestinian territory as main drivers for such incidents.