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Israel jails Palestinian teen for stabbing attack

Xinhua, November 7, 2016 Adjust font size:

An Israeli court sentenced a 14-year-old Palestinian teen to 12 years in an adult prison on Monday for attempting to carry out a stabbing attack in a Jewish settlement in 2015.

The Palestinian teen, whose name was not disclosed since he is a minor, was 13-year-old at the time of the incident.

Last October, the teen and his 15-year-old cousin Hasan Manasra took kitchen knives from their homes in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem, and headed to Pisgat Ze'ev, a Jerusalem settlement neighborhood.

Manasra stabbed and seriously injured a 13-year-old teen and lightly wounded another Israeli man before security officers shot him dead. The forces also shot and injured the younger cousin before taking him into custody.

The Jerusalem District Court found him guilty of two counts of attempted murder and the judges sentenced him to 12 years in an adult jail.

The defendant's lawyers said he did not actually stab anyone and had no intention to kill Israelis, only to injure them. The lawyers added that he tried to prevent Manasra from stabbing the Jewish youth because they had agreed not to hurt children.

Many perpetrators of attacks and attempted attacks recently during the Palestinian unrest are youths, aged 14 to 20-year-old.

The recent violent unrest has claimed the lives of at least 230 Palestinians and 34 Israelis since September 2015 with Israel saying that most of the Palestinians killed were shot while perpetrating or attempting to perpetrate stabbing, car-ramming, and shooting attacks.

On the other hand, Palestinians and human rights organizations say that Israel is using excessive force to quell an uprising, and in many cases kills Palestinians who could be stopped without resorting to lethal force or who were mistakenly believed to be attackers.

Israeli leaders accuse the Palestinian National Authority of "inciting" the unrest, while Palestinians say it is the result of 49 years of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, home to over five million Palestinians, who wish to establish their state there. Endit