Palestinian teen terrorist gets 12 years for stabbing attack

Israel’s justice system handed down a 12-year sentence to Ahmad Manasra for stabbing two Israelis in a terror attack in Pisgat Ze’ev when he was 13 years old.

By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News

A Palestinian teenager who committed a stabbing attack in Jerusalem in October and seriously wounded two Israelis was sentenced on Monday to 12 years in prison at the Jerusalem District Court.

Ahmad Manasra attacked two Israelis when he was 13 years old, along with his 15-year-old cousin Hasan who was subsequently killed by police forces.

The two stabbed and critically wounded 13-year-old Naor Ben-Ezra who was riding his bicycle, as well as another 21-year-old Israeli. Ben-Ezra was able to make a swift recovery and celebrated his Bar Mitzva two months after the attack.

Manasra was hit by a car while fleeing the scene and was thus stopped.

The court also ordered Manasra to pay one of the victims NIS 100,000 and the other NIS 80,000.

“Being a minor does not provide one with immunity from proper punishment, including actual incarceration, when such a severe crime is committed,” the verdict read, adding that this is not negated by the need for a rehabilitative process for an offender who is a minor.

Manasra was convicted in May of two counts of attempted murder. The indictment stated that Manasra returned from school and met his cousin. “They talked about the ‘situation’ at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the state of the Gaza Strip residents, the PA and Hamas. Intending to help them, they decided to become martyrs and be killed as part of a religious war.”

This attack was one of the most outstanding attacks in a year-long wave of Palestinian terror attacks.

At the time, Palestinian Authority (PA) head Mahmoud Abbas falsely proclaimed Manasra dead, setting off another international crisis.