Palestinian teen protest icon Ahed al-Tamimi leaves Israeli prison

JERUSALEM — Palestinian activist and protest icon Ahed al-Tamimi was released from an Israeli prison Sunday after serving an eight-month sentence on charges of incitement and assault.

The curly-haired teen was greeted in her West Bank village with cheers from fellow activists and extended family, and photographs showed a tearful Tamimi embracing relatives. Israeli authorities also released her mother, Nariman, who had served a similar sentence for incitement.

Tamimi, 17, and her mother were indicted by an Israeli military court late last year after a video of the youth kicking and slapping two armed Israeli soldiers outside her home went viral on Facebook. Her mother was arrested after posting the video on social media.

Tamimi, who was already prominent due to her defiance of Israeli soldiers, swiftly became a symbol of the protest movement against Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Her arrest also drew more attention to Israel's detention of Palestinian minors. According to statistics released by Israeli rights group B'Tselem earlier this month, 291 Palestinian minors were held in Israeli prisons as security detainees and prisoners.

“Ahed Tamimi has been released, but only after serving an unjust sentence based on the ridiculous premise that she posed a threat to armed and heavily protected soldiers,” Saleh Higazi, Amnesty International's head of office in Jerusalem, said in a statement.

“Ahed Tamimi’s release must not obscure the familiar and continuing story of the Israeli military using discriminatory policies to lock up Palestinian children,” said Higazi , who described her arrest as “a blatant attempt by the Israeli authorities to intimidate those who dare to challenge the ongoing brutal repression by occupying forces.”

Israeli authorities last month denied a petition for Tamimi's early release.

The eight-month sentence was part of a plea deal. But some Israeli lawmakers said that the 17-year-old’s punishment should have been much harsher — the deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset, Bezalel Smotrich, wrote on Twitter in April that Tamimi “should have gotten a bullet, at least in the kneecap.”

Some Israeli media have referred to her as the “soldier slapper” or nicknamed her “Shirley Temper” due to her wild locks of blonde hair.

Tamimi's village of Nabi Saleh, about 12 miles northwest of the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, has seen weekly protests against Israel’s occupation since 2009. It was then that Jewish settlers had confiscated part of the village's land, including its spring, for the alleged expansion of a nearby settlement, rights groups say.

Israeli troops and border police are stationed there to prevent the protests from reaching the Halamish settlement, which is a half-mile south of Nabi Saleh.

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