A 24-year-old Israeli Arab was sentenced to life imprisonment Monday by a military court in Lod for throwing a hand grenade in Haifa last year that injured 25 people.
The accused, Ali Abdallah Amaria from the Bedouin village of Ibtan, near Haifa, pleaded guilty. He also admitted he belonged to Al Fatah, the fighting arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization controlled by Yasir Arafat.
He confessed to several other security offenses, including a firebomb attack on a bus and setting fire to a bus and other vehicles in a parking lot last summer.
No injuries resulted from those acts.
Col. Aharon Altern, presiding judge of the military court, said Amaria’s case was especially serious because “we are dealing with an Israeli citizen who chose to carry out terrorist activities against civilians.”
Amaria also confessed that his terrorist cell was under orders from Al Fatah to assassinate Gen. Rafael Eitan, the former Israel Defense Force chief of staff who is now a Knesset member representing the right-wing Tsomet party.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
