Occupation Regime Sentences Youngest Palestinian Prisoner to 6 Years

A zionist court on Sunday morning sentenced a teenage Palestinian girl from al-Quds to six years in prison.

Manar Majdi Shweiki, 16, was sentenced to six years in prison after the girl had already spent more than a year in detention for knife possession, her mother Hayat told Palestinian news agency, Maan.

Hayat Shweiki said the Israeli court postponed the sentencing twice since the beginning of 2017.

Since her detention in December 2015, Shweiki has been moved between Israeli prisons of Ramla and Hasharon.

Israeli occupation police first detained her on December 6, 2015 in the Wadi Hilweh area of the Silwan, claiming they found a knife in her bag after searching her belongings, though it was unclear what had prompted the search in the first place.

Maan reported at the time that Palestinian youths filmed the search and arrest of the girl on their phones, which were later confiscated by occupation forces, and clashes subsequently broke out in the area with one youth being injured from shrapnel after a stun grenade exploded nearby.

Two days later, Israeli authorities released Shweiki, but on December 22, 2015, Israeli police detained her again on the streets of occupied East al-Quds’ Old City in the al-Sharaf neighborhood. It remained unclear what prompted forces to detain her the second time.