Israel blocks Palestinian peace activist from film fest

JERUSALEM: Israel says it has banned a Palestinian fighter turned peace activist from attending the Jerusalem premier of a documentary in which she appears.
The Shin Bet security agency said that Shifa Al-Qudsi was barred from entering Israel from the West Bank for “security reasons.”
In 2002, Al-Qudsi was preparing to carry out a suicide bombing when Israeli troops arrested her. She spent six years in prison, and after her release, got involved with “Combatants for Peace” — a group that seeks to end violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
Al-Qudsi is one of the activists featured in the documentary “Disturbing the Peace,” which premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival Thursday.
Al-Qudsi said she didn't understand the decision. “Since I got out of prison, I have been calling for peace,” she said.
Separately, Israeli police have arrested three Jewish minors suspected of having torched a car in an Arab village in retaliation for a Palestinian attack last month, officials said Thursday.
The Shin Bet internal security agency said the youths were detained after a June 10 attack in the village of Yafia near the northern Israeli city of Nazareth.
“Three Jewish minors have been arrested for having set on fire a vehicle in the village of Yafia... and for having sprayed graffiti calling for vengeance after the attack on the Sarona in Tel Aviv,” it said in a statement.
On June 8, two Palestinians shot dead four Israelis at the Sarona Market, a popular Tel Aviv nightspot.
Israeli security officials have said the pair had drawn their inspiration from Daesh.
Shin Bet said the minors “were preparing an attack in response to attacks carried out recently by Palestinians. But after the Tel Aviv attack, they decided to act”.
Two of the suspects are residents of northern Israel while the third is from a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, said Shin Bet.
They are expected to be indicted in the coming days, it added.