Israeli court slaps Palestinian poet with jail term

An Israeli court on Tuesday slapped a prominent Palestinian poet with a five-month jail term for “inciting terrorism” on social-networking platforms.

According to Israeli daily Haaretz, the Israeli Magistrate's Court in the northern city of Nazareth sentenced Darin Tatour after convicting her of “inciting terrorism” in a poem she posted on social media.

An Israeli citizen, Tatour belongs to the country’s Palestinian Arab minority who remained on their land following Israel’s establishment in 1948 -- an event they remember as the “Nakba” or “the Catastrophe”.

Tatour, a 36-year-old resident of the town of Al-Rina in the northern Galilee region, was arrested by the Israeli authorities in 2015 for her poem entitled, “Resist, My People, Resist”.

In early 2016, Israel’s Central Court in Nazareth released Tatour from custody but placed her under house arrest.

It remains unclear whether the jailed poet plans to appeal Tuesday’s court sentence.