A Palestinian man has been jailed for life by an Israeli military court after being convicted of killing an Israeli soldier during a Ramallah-area raid by occupation forces last year.

Islam Yousef Abu Hamid, who was convicted in April, was also ordered to pay the soldier’s family 258,000 shekels ($73,133).

Acquittals for Palestinians in Israeli military courts are extremely rare, and the military court system has been denounced by many international human rights organizations.

Abu Hamid was convicted in April of murdering Ronen Lubarsky, a special forces #IDF soldier, with a concrete slab https://t.co/1ixTRmaoQ7

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) July 22, 2019

The incident in question took place on May 24, when a number of Israeli occupation forces raided Al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah, in the central West Bank.

During the attack on the camp, a block of granite was dropped from a rooftop, hitting Israeli soldier Ronen Lubarsky, who served in the Duvdevan unit. He later died of his injuries.

Abu Hamid was subsequently detained and charged with throwing the rock that killed Lubarsky. Even before his conviction, Israeli occupation forces demolished Abu Hamid’s family home, as part of a policy of collective punishment condemned by human rights campaigners.

Hamid killed Lubarsky in June 2018 by throwing a large marble slab from the rooftop of a building on Lubarsky's head, resulting in his death.https://t.co/F34Ds0WVjF

— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) July 22, 2019

According to the Times of Israel, the soldier’s family – supported by some politicians – slammed the life sentence and demanded Abu Hamid be executed. The father called the sentence “a shame and an embarrassment for the Israeli justice system”.

(Middle East Monitor, PC, Social Media)