Watch: Palestinian jailed as teen for stabbing Israelis freed after 9 years
A Palestinian sentenced as a teen for taking part in a knife attack against two Israelis was freed Thursday after spending more than nine years in jail, a lawyer said.
Ahmad Manasra, now 23, was just 13 when he carried out the attack in October 2015 in Israeli-occupied and annexed east Jerusalem.
"He was released today," said Nareman Shehadeh Zoabi, an attorney for rights group Adalah and part of a legal team representing him.
"His family met him and now the family is taking the time with him and to be able to stay quiet for some time alone with Ahmed," she told AFP.
Manasra was originally sentenced in 2016 to 12 years in prison, but his term was later reduced to nine and a half years by Israel's supreme court.
AFPTV footage on Thursday showed Manasra, wearing a surgical mask and with his hair closely cropped, at an Israeli security facility in Jerusalem alongside his father.
Watch the video below:
He was found guilty of the attempted murder of a 20-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy in the Jewish settlement neighbourhood of Pisgat Zeev in east Jerusalem, his lawyer said at the time.
He carried out the attack with his cousin Hassan, who was shot dead by security forces on the spot.
Between Manasra's conviction and sentencing, Israeli law was amended to allow civilian courts to convict children as young as 12 for "terrorist offences".
Manasra, an east Jerusalem resident, was the youngest Palestinian to be convicted by an Israeli civilian court at the time.
Zoabi, the lawyer at Adalah legal centre, said her team had worked to secure Manasra's early release in 2022 but failed to secure it.
Among other things, his health had declined drastically after he spent nearly two years in solitary confinement.
Rights group Amnesty International had also raised concerns at the time, warning of his deteriorating psychological condition.
"Ahmad Manasra's release today is a huge relief for him and for his family, but nothing can undo the years of injustice, abuse, trauma and ill-treatment he endured behind bars," Amnesty regional director Heba Morayef said in a statement on Thursday.
Manasra initially pleaded not guilty, saying he had intended to frighten the Israelis, not kill them.
The stabbing incident came at the beginning of a months-long wave of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Middle East Eye
an hour ago
- Middle East Eye
Palestinian man shot and killed by Israeli forces near Tubas
A Palestinian man from the town of Tammun, south of Tubas in the occupied West Bank, was shot and killed by Israeli forces overnight, Wafa reported, citing local sources. He was identified as Ra'iq Abdul Rahman Basharat and was reportedly killed after Israeli special forces entered the town, opened fire on him, and seized his body. Sources added that Israeli forces obstructed the work of medical crews, preventing them from reaching the scene and transferring the body to the hospital. The raid in Tamoun lasted several hours and involved house searches, detentions, and the arrest of two other young men, one of whom was injured.
Al Etihad
an hour ago
- Al Etihad
'This isn't real': teacher's narrow escape from Austria school shooter
11 June 2025 14:26 GRAZ, AUSTRIA (AFP)A teacher told AFP Wednesday how he found himself in a corridor with the shooter who killed 10 people in an Austrian school as he fled his empty G. Nitsche was working on his own with the door open on the upper floor of the Dreierschuetzengasse secondary school in Graz when the shooting started."I heard this bang. And I blocked it out," the 51-year-old told reporters, whose students were elsewhere sitting their final year was only when he heard the sound of bullet casings hitting the floor of a corridor outside that "something snapped inside me" and the realisation dawned, he said."I jumped up and thought that as a teacher alone in a classroom with a possible attacker, this is a very bad situation. "And I decided to run."I ran out quickly through the corridor, which is only a few metres long, and then down the stairs."It was then that the evangelical pastor saw the shooter in the corridor of the floor below. The sight of him stopped him in his tracks "for a moment". 'You try to block everything out' "He was trying to shoot the door (of a classroom) open with his rifle."He was busy.... and I didn't look around much either... I didn't hang around," Nitsche said."And as I ran down the stairs, I thought to myself, 'This isn't real, this is a film.'"But when he got to the lower floor, "I saw a student lying on the floor and a teacher was there, and I knew, 'Ah, this is serious.'""As a human being, you really try (to understand what is happening), I know that from my crisis training, but (at the same time) you really try to block everything out," the pastor added."I think the emergency services were there a minute or two later, thank God."What struck Nitsche was the eerie silence that had fallen over the school."It was very quiet. Everyone was was total silence. No screaming, nothing. That's not what school is like."And the emergency services arrived in normal police cars, four of them with bulletproof vests, and then they went in."Nitsche said it was hard to grasp the enormity of what had happened. What he experienced was just one part of "a mosaic with lots of pieces".He went back to help comfort students outside the school Wednesday. A city in shock A large black banner, "Graz stands together", was strung across a fence nearby as Austria's second city tried to come to terms with the groups of students, most dressed in black and many of them crying, placed candles at the entrance of the closed shooting is an unprecedented case of deadly gun violence in the usually peaceful Alpine said the shooter, a 21-year-old former student at the school, killed himself in a toilet after leaving 10 dead or dying and wounding 12 found a "non-functional homemade bomb" during a search of his home. A goodbye letter addressed to the suspect's parents was also recovered, though it included no clues about his in Graz are struggling to express their shock."You can see here how the whole city, probably the whole country, is reeling," Michael Saad, a 22-year-old student, told AFP at a candlelight vigil late was among hundreds gathered at the central square in Graz, many young people, placing candles at the feet of a monument in the square in a sombre atmosphere as people stood in silence. Many hugged with tears in their eyes, while others talked quietly in muffled voices.
Gulf Today
2 hours ago
- Gulf Today
Russian attacks kill 2, wound 13 in Ukraine; Zelensky says its biggest air attacks
Russia sent waves of drones and missiles in an attack on two Ukrainian cities early on Tuesday that killed two people and wounded at least thirteen others, Ukraine officials said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Russia launched one of its biggest air attacks on Kyiv overnight, using 315 drones and seven missiles in strikes that also hit other parts of the country. "Russian missile and Shahed strikes drown out the efforts of the United States and others around the world to force Russia into peace," Zelensky wrote on X. A maternity hospital and residential buildings in the center of the southern port city of Odesa were damaged in the attack, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said. Two people were killed and nine injured in the city, according to a statement from the regional prosecutor's office. A local resident looks at a burned building following drones strike on Ukraine's capital Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday. AFP Four people were injured in the attack on the capital, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Associated Press journalists heard explosions and the buzzing of drones around the city for hours. The fresh attacks came hours after Moscow launched almost 500 drones at Ukraine in the biggest overnight drone bombardment in the three-year war. Ukrainian and Western officials have been anticipating a Russian response to Ukraine's audacious June 1 drone attack on distant Russian air bases. Plumes of smoke were visible in Kyiv as air defense forces worked to shoot down drones and missiles Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, Ukrainian residents took shelter and slept in metro stations during the hourslong attack. Nina Nosivets, 32, and her 8-month-old son Levko were among them. A view shows a burning apartment building after it was hit by a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine, on Tuesday. Reuters "I just try not to think about all this, silently curled up like a mouse, wait until it all passes, the attacks. Distract the child somehow because its probably the hardest thing for him to bear," she said. Krystyna Semak, a 37-year-old Kyiv resident, said the explosions frightened her and she ran to the metro at 2 a.m. with her rug. Russia has been launching a record-breaking number of drones and missiles targeting Ukraine while the two countries continue to swap prisoners of war, the only tangible outcome of recent direct peace talks held in Istanbul. A ceasefire, long sought by Kyiv, remains elusive. Rescuers and members of funeral service carry the body of a resident killed in apartment building during a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine, on Tuesday. Reuters In Kyiv, fires broke out in at least four districts after debris from shot down drones fell on the roofs of residential buildings and warehouses, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration. Vasyl Pesenko, 25, stood in his kitchen, damaged in the attack. "I was lying in bed, as always hoping that these Shaheds (drones) would fly past me, and I heard that Shahed (that hit the house),' he said. "I thought that it would fly away, but it flew closer and closer and everything blew away.' Agencies
