Ramallah: The Israeli regime’s Ministry of Justice has completed drafting an amendment to the law prohibiting the throwing of stones at Israelis. The proposed amendment allows for stone-throwers to be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

The Israeli media has reported that the new amendment permitting the harsher sentences only requires the approval of the Israeli cabinet as the last step before being enacted.

Cabinet Secretary Avichai Mandelblit has devoted a great deal of time to working on the formulation of the new amendment, which lowers the burden of proof for the indictment of Palestinian stone-throwers.

Under the current law, stone-throwers receive prison sentences of a few months. The new amendment will enable courts to issue prison sentences involving decades of incarceration. The intention is to deter Palestinian stone-throwers from even thinking about throwing stones at Israeli soldiers or vehicles.

The new amendment mandates sentencing stone-throwers who lack specific intent to harm to 10 years in prison but condemns those with specific intent to harm to 20 years imprisonment.

The preamble of the new amendment notes that around 1,000 indictments for stone throwing are submitted each year.

Palestinians have branded the new amendment a racist law, which targets Palestinian stone-throwers who act in self-defence against the aggression of Israeli colonists who attack them day and night, particularly in villages and towns near Nablus.

Palestinians sources told Gulf News the law should be implemented against both Palestinian and Israeli colonist stone-throwers. They noted the Israelis will continue to turn a blind eye when colonists throw stones at Palestinians. The sources said the Israelis want to want to strip the Palestinians of all their tools to resist the Israeli occupation and that the stone has been the symbol of the Palestinian resistance movement for decades.

The sources said Palestinian youths involved in demonstrations against the Israeli occupation who are arrested for throwing stones are sentenced by military courts.

They said the inclusion of the word “intent” is extremely suspicious since the military courts rely solely on the testimonies of the Israeli soldiers who detain Palestinian youth. Therefore, it is the testimony of the arresting soldiers which will be enough for the courts to pass sentences ranging from a few months to several years against Palestinian youths.