ISRAELI MPs have voted for draconian legislation to impose a minimum sentence of three years in jail for Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli occupation forces.

The new law appeared on the Knesset website on Tuesday evening. It will also strip stone-throwers of their social security benefits, which applies to Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.

Parents of minors convicted of stone-throwing will have their social security benefits withheld during the period of their children’s sentences.

“A minimum punishment is necessary to create a deterrent and uproot the assumption that ‘it’s just a stone’,” said Nissan Slomiansky of the extremist Jewish Home party, which sponsored the legislation.

He said that “throwing a rock is an attempt to murder and there should at least be a minimum punishment.”

Anti-zionist Balad party MP Jamal Zahalka condemned the law, saying that “fires cannot be put out with petrol and this law is throwing petrol on a fire.”