News / Palestine

Israel jails 5 relatives of Palestinian teenager in occupied West Bank

Monday, 28 August 2017 5:23 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 28 August 2017 6:23 PM ]

The Israeli military destroyed the family home of Palestinian teenage boy Omar al-Abed in the West Bank town of Kobar on August 16, 2017 after he allegedly stabbed to death three settlers of a Jewish settlement a month earlier. (Photo by AFP)

Israel has jailed five relatives of a Palestinian teenager, who fatally wounded three settlers in an alleged stabbing attack, claiming that the prisoners knew about the attack beforehand but did not try to prevent him from conducting his purported deadly assault.

An Israeli military court ruled on Sunday that the parents, an uncle and the three brothers of 19-year-old Omar al-Abed “knew he intended to commit” a stabbing attack but “did nothing to warn the security services to prevent it.”

The court sentenced Abed's brothers and uncle to serve eight months in prison each, while his mother and father received one and two months respectively.

Israeli authorities claim that on July 21 Abed, from the occupied West Bank town of Kobar, stabbed to death three settlers in the nearby settlement of Neve Tsuf. Israeli troops then shot the teenage boy and wounded him before taking him into police custody.

Abed has, since then, been placed under arrest. His family members have been in detention for what Israeli officials call their failure to prevent the alleged attack. Later in July, the Israeli military raided and closed off the village. On August 16, Israeli security forces also demolished Abed’s family home in Kobar, near Ramallah.

The occupied Palestinian territories have witnessed new tension ever since Israeli forces introduced restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015.

More than 300 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces since the beginning of October 2015.

The Tel Aviv regime has tried to change the demographic makeup of Jerusalem al-Quds over the past decades by constructing settlements, destroying historical sites and expelling the local Palestinian population. Palestinians say the Israeli measures are aimed at paving the way for the Judaization of the city.

The al-Aqsa Mosque compound is a flash point Islamic site, which is also holy to Jews. The mosque is Islam’s third holiest site after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

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