The parole board at Rimonim Prison has denied Ahed Tamimi’s early release request. The 17-year-old Palestinian girl was sent to jail for eight and a half months after slapping an Israeli soldier in her West Bank village of Nabi Saleh.
Tamimi’s attorney, Gaby Lasky, wrote in reaction on Facebook, “It’s interesting that the parole board decided it was OK to grant an early release to Elor Azaria (so that he would serve nine months), and a different board prevented Ahed’s release so that she would serve eight months.” Lasky was protesting the early release in March of Azaria, who shot an incapacitated Palestinian attacker in the head in the West Bank city of Hebron and served almost the same time as Tamimi, charged with slapping a soldier.
The Shin Bet and the Israel Prison Service both objected to Tamimi’s early release, arguing that she had not expressed regret for her actions and still poses a threat. Azaria never expressed regret, either. In their opinion, the parole board members wrote, “The comments she made on the issue point to her extreme ideology. Together with the security situation on the ground, there is a potential threat in her early release.”
In March 2018, under a plea bargain reached by Lasky with the state, the Palestinian girl was sentenced to eight months in prison and fined 5,000 shekels ($1,390) after admitting to four of the 12 charges brought against her. From the minute she was arrested last December, the Shin Bet and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) treated Tamimi as a dangerous criminal who must be brought to justice as if she had carried out a mass terror attack. She was remanded in custody until the end of the proceedings against her, and the military prosecutors labored over a lengthy indictment that included charges of incitement and past harassment of IDF soldiers.
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