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Palestinian jailed over Facebook posts

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An Israeli court has sentenced a Palestinian man to eight months in prison on charges of posting comments critical of the Tel Aviv regime’s policies and Zionism on the online social networking service Facebook.

On Tuesday, the Magistrates Court in al-Quds (Jerusalem) handed down the sentence to 28-year-old Sami Jamal Faraj Ideis, a local resident of the Palestinian Shufat neighborhood of East al-Quds, after convicting him of “inciting anti-Jewish violence and supporting terror” on his Facebook page between July and November last year.

The court said Ideis wrote “Death to Israel” on his account on July 5, 2014, and on the same day condemned Israel over its expropriation of Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank for settlement expansion.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Prisoners and Former Prisoners’ Committee has released a report, in which minor Palestinian prisoners have testified to cases of Israeli forces attacking them while being kept or interrogated in Israel’s detention facilities.

Hiba Masalha, a lawyer for the committee, said 15-year-old Palestinian Jamal al-Zaatari, was beaten and assaulted during his detention in Israel’s HaSharon Prison.

Zaatari was blindfolded, handcuffed with plastic straps, beaten on the head, prevented from drinking water for hours, and verbally assaulted during interrogation.

Thousands of Palestinians are held in Israeli jails without clear charges. There are reportedly over 7,000 Palestinians in 17 Israeli prisons and detention camps.

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