Israeli police have found the body of a Palestinian teenager who was kidnapped overnight in East Jerusalem. Mohammed Abu Khdair, seventeen, was seen being forced into a car; within hours, his partly-burned corpse was discovered in a forest.Rico says that, if you engage in tit-for-tat, you eventually run out of tits...
Israeli police were unable to confirm the motive, but Palestinian sources said it appeared to be a revenge attack for the murder of three Israeli teens. Later, Palestinians clashed with Israeli police near the boy's home. The protesters threw stones at the officers, who reportedly responded by firing sound bombs, tear gas and rubber bullets.
The mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, called for restraint.
Witnesses said Mohammed Abu Khdair was abducted near his father's shop in the Arab district of Shufat in East Jerusalem. A relative said he saw two men approach the boy and ask for directions before bundling him into a car.
Israeli police officers said they were looking into possible criminal or nationalistic motives for the killing
"While they were speaking to him, a car approached in which there was a third man," Saeed Abu Khudair told the Reuters news agency. "Two of them carried him. He was small, so he couldn't resist. Some men who were nearby saw what happened. They chased after the kidnappers' car, but they couldn't catch it."
A few hours later, his body, partly burned and bearing marks of violence, was found abandoned in a forest near Givat Shaul, in the western outskirts of the city.
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," he told reporters. "Everything is being examined. There are many possibilities. There is a criminal possibility as well as a political one," he added. "I am telling everyone, let us wait patiently."
line
Yolande Knell of BBC News in Jerusalem has more:Roads are closed off all around the Shufat neighborhood of East Jerusalem, as crowds of young Palestinians vent their anger (photo). Some have begun destroying the shelters for the Israeli tram system. Small groups are using catapults to launch stones at heavily armed Israeli police officers, who are responding with rounds of rubber bullets. An ambulance whizzed past with sirens blaring suggesting there have been injuries.
The Palestinian teenager's funeral is expected to take place later on Wednesday; that will be another cause for tension.
While there has been no confirmation that this was a revenge attack for the three murdered Israelis whose bodies were found in the West Bank earlier this week, there is no doubt among Palestinians here about what has happened.
02 July 2014
Another body found in Jerusalem
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment