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| Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting in his office in Jerusalem, Sunday, July 6, 2014. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Israel would act calmly and responsibly in the face of rising Israeli-Palestinian hostilities, just hours after Israel's military carried out airstrikes on 10 sites in the Gaza Strip. |
JERUSALEM
(AP) -- Israel arrested six Jewish suspects Sunday in the grisly slaying
of a Palestinian teenager who was abducted and burned alive last week -
a crime that set off a wave of violent protests in Arab sections of the
country.
Leaders of the Jewish state appealed
for calm amid signs the death was revenge for the recent killings of
three Israeli teenagers.
"We will not allow
extremists, it doesn't matter from which side, to inflame the region and
cause bloodshed," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a
nationally televised statement. "Murder is murder, incitement is
incitement, and we will respond aggressively to both."
He promised to prosecute those responsible to the full extent of the law.
The
region has been on edge since three Israeli teens - one of them a U.S.
citizen - were kidnapped while hitchhiking in the West Bank last month.
Last week, the teens' bodies were found in a West Bank field in a crime
Israel blamed on the militant group Hamas.
Just
hours after the youths were buried, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old
Palestinian from east Jerusalem, was abducted near his home, and his
charred remains were found shortly afterward in a Jerusalem forest.
Preliminary autopsy results found he was still alive when he was set on
fire.
Palestinians immediately accused Israeli
extremists of killing the youth in revenge. And on Sunday, Israeli
authorities said the killers had acted out of "nationalistic" motives.
The suspects remained in custody and were being interrogated, authorities said.
An
Israeli official said there were six suspects and described them as
young males, including several minors, all of whom lived in the
Jerusalem area. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the
investigation was continuing.
He said police
had located a car used by the suspects. During the investigation, he
said, police learned of an attempted kidnapping the previous day of a
child in the same neighborhood and concluded the cases were linked.
Israeli TV showed pictures of the 9-year-old boy with red marks around
his neck.
Abu Khdeir's family said that the arrests brought them little joy and that they had little faith in the Israeli justice system.
"I
don't have any peace in my heart, even if they captured who they say
killed my son," said his mother, Suha. "They're only going to ask them
questions and then release them. What's the point?"
She
added: "They need to treat them the way they treat us. They need to
demolish their homes and round them up, the way they do it to our
children."
Abu Khdeir's death triggered
violence in his neighborhood, as angry crowds destroyed train stations
and hurled rocks. The unrest spread to sections of northern Israel over
the weekend.
On Sunday, the situation in east
Jerusalem, home to most of the city's Palestinians, appeared to be
calming down, as businesses and markets reopened, and roads that had
been cordoned off were reopened to traffic.
Top Israeli officials expressed concern that the charged atmosphere of recent days had led to the boy's killing.
After
the Israeli teenagers were found dead, several hundred Jewish
extremists had marched through downtown Jerusalem calling for "death to
Arabs." Social media sites were also flooded with calls for vengeance.
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said her ministry is investigating some of the anti-Arab incitement seen on Facebook last week.
"These
things need to be cut when they are small," she told Channel 2 TV. "At
this moment, everybody's job should be to lower the flames."
Cabinet
minister Jacob Peri, a former head of the Shin Bet security agency,
said he had met with Arab leaders in northern Israel to calm tensions.
President Shimon Peres, a Nobel peace laureate, also was in contact with
Arab leaders.
About 50 people were arrested
in several days of demonstrations following Abu Khdeir's death, and 15
police officers and two civilians were injured, authorities said.
A
15-year-old Palestinian-American cousin of Abu Khdeir was also injured
in clashes with Israeli security forces in east Jerusalem.
The
boy, Tariq Abu Khdeir, who goes to school in Florida, was ordered
confined to his home in Israel for nine days while police investigate
what they say was his participation in violent protests - a charge his
family denies.
The U.S. State Department said
it was "profoundly troubled" by reports that he was beaten, and Israel's
Justice Ministry launched an investigation.
As
Tariq was released to his family, he was crying and appeared badly
bruised, with both eyes and his mouth swollen. "I feel better. I am
excited to be back home," he said.
State
Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that "if the investigation is
concluded promptly, Mr. Khudeir should be able to return to Florida as
planned with his family later this month."
Tariq's parents said they plan on returning to the U.S. with their son on July 16.
The
situation along Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip,
meanwhile, remained tense. Gaza militants have stepped up rocket fire in
recent weeks, drawing Israeli airstrikes.
The
Israeli military said late Sunday that it carried out an airstrike on
militants involved in firing rockets at Israel. It said at least 25
rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza over the course of the day.
Gaza
medical official Ashraf al-Kidra said that two men were killed and one
injured. Relatives said they belonged to a militant group.
