Ramallah: Israel’s Jerusalem Central Court sentenced on Sunday a Palestinian resident of occupied East Jerusalem to 46 months imprisonment and ordered him to pay a fine of 200,000 shekels (Dh187,619) after he faced court on charges of distributing gifts to children in Al Aqsa Mosque during the last Eid Al Fitr and Eid Al Adha.
Activists in the occupied East Jerusalem told Gulf News Khalil Attiyah Al Gazawi, 41, from Al Thawri neighbourhood of the occupied East Jerusalem, did not do anything wrong when he distributed small gifts to Palestinian children in the Muslim world’s third holiest place to encourage them to visit the mosque regularly and pray in it. The activists called the sentence unjustified.
The court ordered Al Gazawi to pay the fine in instalments (10,000 shekels monthly) and ruled that failure to do that on time will result in increasing the prison term by a month’s imprisonment for each day of delay.
Al Ghazawi was arrested from his home earlier and was interrogated repeated and aggressively until Sunday, the day he was handed the court’s verdict. Al Gazawi, a father of eight children who works as a teacher in the occupied East Jerusalem, has been an Israeli target several times and had previously been arrested and served several prison terms for such social and religious activities.
The court ordered Al Gazawi to serve his prison term in the Israeli prison of Eshel where he is scheduled to pay his monthly fine dues.
The sources in the occupied East Jerusalem said despite the innocuous nature of Al Gazawi’s actions, for the Israelis what he did is a major violation. The sources said that the Israelis want Al Aqsa Mosque empty of faithful but as Al Gazawi was encouraging even the young generations to be part of the mosque he received a harsh penalty.
