|
 Rock-throwing Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces in
Jerusalem after the news, but no serious injuries were reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement, urged
police to "to swiftly investigate who was behind the loathsome
murder and its motive". He called on all sides "not to take the law
into their own hands".
Palestinian residents in Shuafat, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem, told
Reuters they had seen a teenager forced into a vehicle outside a
supermarket on Tuesday night. They identified him as Mohammed Abu
Khudair, 16.
An Israeli security source said Israel suspected the youth had been
kidnapped and murdered, possibly in retribution for the killings of
the Israeli teens, whose bodies were found on Monday, nearly three
weeks after they were abducted in the occupied West Bank.
Israel says Palestinian Hamas militants killed them. The Islamist
group has neither confirmed nor denied the allegation.
A senior official of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah
movement told Reuters the missing teenager's family had identified
the corpse, found in the wooded outskirts of Jerusalem. The family
was not immediately available for comment.
"The Israeli government bears responsibility for Jewish terrorism
and for the kidnapping and murder in occupied Jerusalem," the Fatah
official, Dmitry Diliani, said.
Israeli Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said it was
too early to draw conclusions as to the motive.
"We know of a boy who apparently was abducted and we see a link to
the discovery of a body. This is still under investigation by the
forensic labs and detectives," Aharonovitch told reporters.
On Tuesday, the three Jewish seminary students were buried in a
funeral attended by tens of thousands of mourners.
REVENGE
While the teenagers were laid to rest in the city of Modi'in,
several hundreds Israeli demonstrators, some chanting "Death to
Arabs", blocked the main entrance to Jerusalem.
Cries for revenge have echoed throughout the decades-old
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
They can be heard at the emotionally charged funerals of
Palestinians killed by Israel, and the phrase "May God avenge his
death" is often invoked at the burials of Israelis slain by
Palestinians.
[to top of second column] |
But deadly Israeli vigilante attacks, in declared retribution for
Palestinian assaults, have been rare in recent years.
More common are the so-called "Price Tag" incidents in which mosques
and Palestinian property are torched or damaged - a reference by
ultranationalist Jews to making the government "pay" for any curbs
on Jewish settlement on Palestinian land.
Before Netanyahu issued his statement, Abbas, who had condemned the
abduction of the three Israeli youths, called on the Israeli leader
to condemn the killing of the Palestinian teen, the Palestinian
state news agency WAFA said.
Tensions were also high in the West Bank, where around 40
Palestinians were arrested in raids on Tuesday, the latest in a
campaign by Israel to cripple Hamas there.
Four people were wounded by live bullets early on Wednesday in an
Israeli raid in the Palestinian city of Jenin.
Near Hebron, Israeli forces destroyed the home of a Palestinian
arrested on charges of shooting dead an off-duty police officer in
the West Bank in April.
Israel, which suspended the demolition policy in 2005 as a
Palestinian uprising waned, says destroying the homes of
Palestinians involved in attacks on Israelis has a deterrent effect.
Rights groups have condemned the practice as collective punishment.
(Additional reporting by Ammar Awad, Ori Lewis, Maayan Lubell and
Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem and Noah Browning and Ali Sawafta in
Ramallah; Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Noah Browning; Editing by
Alison Williams)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
