Inhuman zionist court gives three years in prison to Palestinian minor

The court on Thursday ruled that 13-year-old Ashraf Adwan from Eizariya town should pay 5,000 Israeli shekels ($1461) in fine and compensation, the Palestinian Information Center reported.

Adwan was abducted from outside the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in September last year.

He has been interrogated in harsh circumstances at an Israeli detention center over the past few months. The teenager is also said to have been tortured.

Adwan’s mother expressed her sadness at the ruling on Thursday and said the Israeli authorities had only allowed her to visit him once after his detention.

“I am longing to see Ashraf and I miss his presence at home because he is my youngest child. His father died when he was a seven-month-old baby. During the last period of his detention, I was able to visit him once,” the mother said.

Back in April, the Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission said in a report that nearly 200 Palestinian children were kept behind bars in Israeli prisons in inhumane conditions, undergoing “very rough interrogation process and torture.”

Qadri Abu Baker, the head of the commission, denounced the UN at the time for failing to “provide the minimum protection for the Palestinian children” against physical and psychological abuse in Israeli jails.

Abu Baker said Israeli forces had arrested more than 17,000 minors since 2000, adding that in most cases the children under the age of 10 were detained. He stressed that the majority of the children had been subjected to physical and psychological torture.

According to figures by the Defense for Children International, between 500 and 700 Palestinian children at the age of 12-17 are arrested and tried in Israeli military courts every year.  

Detention of Palestinian children by the Israeli regime violates Article 33 and Article 34 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to which the parties must protect children from abduction and all forms of exploitation. 

Israel has a long history in wounding and killing Palestinian children, especially during anti-occupation protests. 

In March 2019, UNICEF said about 40 Palestinian children had been killed and hundreds more wounded in a year of anti-occupation protests along the fence that separates the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories.

More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly held in Israeli prisons. Hundreds of inmates have apparently been incarcerated under the practice of administrative detention, a policy under which Palestinians are kept in Israeli detention centers without trial or charge.

Palestinian injured in car-ramming attack by Israeli settler

In a separate development, a Palestinian citizen identified as 41-year-old Jibril al-Amour was injured when an extremist Israeli settler rammed his car into a horse-drawn cart in the occupied West Bank. The incident happened on a road near Rifa’iya village in the south of al-Khalil (Hebron) on Wednesday. 

The settler fled the scene following the hit-and-run attack.

According to human rights groups, incidents of sabotage and violence by extremist settlers against Palestinians and their property are a daily occurrence throughout the occupied West Bank.

Israeli settlers have pressed ahead with their acts of vandalism and violence, known as price tag attacks, against Palestinians and their property as well as Muslim holy sites.

The Israeli settlers also launch attacks on Palestinian homes, set their cars on fire, vandalize their property, and uproot their olive trees and other crops.

The Israeli rights group B’Tselem earlier this year said Israeli settlers had noticeably escalated attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in April despite restriction of movement and lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds. 

For years, Israel has clearly allowed its settlers to assault Palestinians and inflict damage on their property as one of its policies. This has included provision of military protection for the attackers, and in some cases troopers’ active participation in the assault. 

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions. 

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.