Israeli police arrest Palestinian days after release from 14 years in prison

Israeli police in Jerusalem said on Friday they arrested a Palestinian man just days after he completed a 14-year prison sentence for a plot to poison diners at an Israeli restaurant.

A police statement said the man was detained on Thursday in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabal Mukaber, where he lives.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the suspect was arrested for "supporting terrorism".

Rosenfeld did not identify the man, but Israeli media said he was Sufian Abdu, an accomplice in a 2002 plan by Palestinian cook Othman Qihanya to kill customers at a west Jerusalem landmark, Cafe Rimon, on behalf of the Palestinian party Hamas.

The Jerusalem Post said Abdu had left prison only three days prior to his arrest.

Police said he was suspected of "supporting and identifying with a terror organisation," without elaborating.

Israeli public radio said he was detained again because of "the waving of Hamas flags and the voicing of calls to violence and incitement against Israel" at a party to welcome him home from prison.

He was brought before a magistrate on Friday and remanded in custody for further questioning by the Jerusalem police "minorities" (Palestinian affairs) unit, a police statement said.

Before his arrest, Abdu said Israeli jails are witnessing increased tensions because of the maltreatment of Palestinian prisoners, Arabic-language news website Alwatan Voice reported.

Activists point to double standards in Israeli incitement laws, which largely target Palestinians while ignoring extreme statements and calls for violence by Israelis.

"Like virtually all aspects of life in Israel, how the incitement law is applied depends on ethnicity," writer Alex Kane wrote in a Mondoweiss column in 2015. "Palestinian citizens are routinely investigated and arrested for incitement to violence for comments that don’t come close to the edge of violent speech."