JERUSALEM, Tuesday, March 22, 2022 (WAFA) – An Israeli court today sentenced Sheikh Jarrah resident and activist, Murad Atiyeh, 26, to one year in prison on classified charges, according to Atiyeh’s family members.

They told WAFA correspondent that Atiyeh, who was detained at his home in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem on August 8 and remanded in prison for 22 times, was held and sentenced on classified charges. His lawyer was also banned from talking to the media about Atiyeh’s case following a court gag order.

Atiyeh was one of the more visible activists in the battle of Sheikh Jarrah’s Palestinian residents against attempts by Jewish settler groups backed by their government and courts to forcibly expel the neighborhood’s Palestinian residents from their homes in order to take them over and establish a Jewish settlement in the neighborhood.

His family believes Atiyeh was put away in order to silence him and others who speak out against the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah and other Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem facing a similar fate, such as Silwan and Wadi al-Joz.

M.K.