ISRAEL released a 12-year-old girl, believed to be its youngest female Palestinian detainee, yesterday after nearly three months in prison.

Dima al-Wawi, from a village near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, was arrested and sentenced in February for attempted manslaughter and possession of a knife.

She is alleged to have gone to the illegal israeli settlement of Karmei Tzur with the intention of stabbing settlers.

Dima was freed yesterday at a military checkpoint in the northern West Bank district of Tulkarem after her parents filed a request for her release two months before the end of her sentence and agreed an 8,000 shekel (£1,500) release payment.

Palestinian Authority prisoners’ affairs committee chairman Issa Qaraqe and Tulkarem governor Issam Abu Bakr were present.

“The detention of children is a crime against humanity,” Mr Abu Bakr said, adding that the Israeli occupation “violates children’s dignity and their right to live.”

Mr Qaraqe said that Israel “practises the ugliest means of suppression and torture against Palestinian children.”

Two Palestinians were arrested and nine Israelis evacuated at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the focus of tensions that have led to months of violence.

Witnesses told the Ma’an news agency a group of right-wing Israelis entered the compound escorted by Israeli forces but were stopped by guards after they attempted to carry out “rituals.”

Israeli police remained on high security alert in occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City yesterday after tensions on Friday’s Passover holiday.

Liberal Jewish group Women of the Wall held a prayer service at the Western Wall on the Temple Mount yesterday, drawing protests from ultra-orthodox Jews.