Palestinian minor jailed for life, fined $460,000

An Israeli court sentenced 16-year-old Palestinian Murad Badr Ideis to life in prison and a nearly $500,000 fine yesterday for carrying out a deadly stabbing attack in January.

Ideis, a resident of the village of Beit Amra in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron, received the life sentence and a 1.75 million shekel ($458,875) fine after being convicted of carrying out a stabbing attack on 17 January, killing Dafna Meir, a 38-year-old Israeli woman living in the illegal settlement of Otniel.

Ideis was detained two days after the attack, when he was still 15 years old, and was convicted of murder and knife possession, Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs lawyer Khalid Al-Aaraj said.

Al-Aaraj said that he had appealed to the court asking it to take into account Ideis’ age and not try him as an adult, but that the appeal was rejected.

The head of the Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs in Hebron, Ibrahim Najajra, called the sentencing unjust and said the sentence, as well as the huge fine, was part of an Israeli policy of revenge on the Palestinian people.

Israeli forces demolished Ideis’ family home in Beit Amra in June.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem has condemned the practice of punitive house demolitions as “court-sanctioned revenge” carried out on family members who have not committed crimes, amounting to collective punishment and illegal under international law.

Since the beginning of a wave of unrest across the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel in October 2015, 34 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians, 16 of whom died during stabbing attacks.

During the same time period, 237 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis, the vast majority of whom were shot dead by Israeli forces.

Throughout the unrest, rights groups have repeatedly denounced what they have termed Israeli forces’ “shoot-to-kill” policy against Palestinians who did not constitute a threat at the time of their death or who could have been subdued in a non-lethal manner.

16-year-old Palestinian Murad Badr Ideis