Palestinian citizen of Israel sentenced to 5 months in prison for spitting on border guard

Maan
Sheikh Raed Salah was sentenced to five months jail time on Tuesday by Israel's District Court in occupied East Jerusalem, for spitting on an Israeli border guard in 2007.

The leader of the Islamic Movement in Northern Israel's sentence was reduced from nine months and will begin on 25 July.

A lawyer at the hearing told Ma'an that the ruling, which saw Salah convicted of assault, was unprecedented.

Palestinian member of Israel's Knesset Haneen Zoabi, who was present at the ruling, described it as an "unjustified punishment."

"This is an exaggeration, and not an objective ruling ... Israel treats Palestinians not as citizens but as enemies. This hostile dealing comes across all institutions, not just politically or in the Knesset, but also the court system, which is supposed to protect the rights of its citizens," MK Zoabi said.

Salah was indicted on assault charges following reports that he spat on a border guard in East Jerusalem's Old City in 2007 during a rally against Israeli construction near the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound.

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Palestinian sources said the court rejected a petition by Salah's lawyers to delay the implementation of the verdict until the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Judge Yitzhak Shimoni said, "This is a significant sentence in order to clarify to the defendant the severity of the offense he committed."

The court also ordered Salah to pay 7,500 shekels ($2,000) to the officer he allegedly spit on in February 2007.

The assault, which Salah has always denied, took place during demonstrations that erupted in and around Jerusalem's Old City in February 2007 when Israel embarked on excavations near Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Jamal Zahalkah, an Arab member of Israel's Knesset and Chairman of Balad party, said the sentence against Salah "was politically motivated."

Zahalkah said in a press statement that the ruling "aims at silencing the Arab leaders inside Israel."

Salah has been detained on several occasions, most recently after taking part in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla seized on May 31 in a raid in which Israeli naval commandos killed nine Turkish activists in international waters.

In 2003, Salah was arrested and indicted on charges of contacting a foreign agent, for which he received a two-and-a-half year prison sentence.

Israel's Arab community numbers 1.3 million, about 20 percent of the population. It includes the descendants of the 160,000 Palestinians who remained in Israel after the 1948 war and establishment of the Jewish state.