|
| Suha Abu Khdeir, mother of 15-year-old Tariq Abu Khdeir, a U.S. citizen who goes to school in Tampa, Florida, sits in her home and shows a tablet with a photo of Tariq taken in a hospital after he was beaten and arrested by the Israeli police during clashes sparked by the killing Thursday of his cousin Mohammed Abu Khdeir, in Jerusalem, Saturday, July 5, 2014. Israeli police spokeswoman, said that Tariq Abu Khdeir had resisted arrest and attacked police officers. Tariq’s father said he witnessed his son’s arrest and insisted the boy was not involved in the violence. |
RAMALLAH, West
Bank (AP) -- An autopsy showed an Arab teenager who Palestinians say
was killed in a revenge attack was burned to death, officials said
Saturday, while Palestinian militants fired two rockets toward a major
southern city deeper into Israel than any other attack in the current
round of violence.
The Israeli military said
its "Iron Dome" defense system intercepted the rockets that were aimed
at Beersheba. The military also said at least 29 other rockets and
mortars were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel over the weekend. It
said it had retaliated with airstrikes on militant sites in Gaza.
Clashes
between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters spread early Saturday
from Jerusalem to Arab towns in northern Israel as hundreds of people
took to the streets and threw rocks and fire bombs at officers who
responded with tear gas and stun grenades, police said.
Palestinian
Attorney General Abdelghani al-Owaiwi said he received initial autopsy
results from a Palestinian doctor who was present at the autopsy in Tel
Aviv. He said it shows that 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir,
whose death has sparked large protests in his east Jerusalem
neighborhood, suffered burns on "90 percent of his body."
"The results show he was breathing while on fire and died from burns and their consequences," al-Owaiwi said.
His
account provided the first details of the preliminary findings to be
made public. The Israeli Health Ministry could not be reached for
comment.
The autopsy found evidence that Abu
Khdeir had breathed in the flames as burns were found inside his body,
in his lungs, bronchial tubes and his throat, al-Owaiwi said.
He
also said the young man had suffered wounds on the right side of his
head apparently from impact with a rock or another hard object.
Abu
Khdeir's charred body was found in a forest Wednesday after he was
seized near his home. Palestinians immediately accused Israeli
extremists of killing him to avenge the deaths of three Israeli teens
who had been abducted and killed in the West Bank. Israeli police said
an investigation is still underway and they have not yet determined who
killed the boy or why.
Israeli leaders have
widely condemned the killing of the Palestinian youth, and Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed those responsible would be brought to
justice.
Palestinians took to the streets in
protests after news of the boy's death on Wednesday and clashed with
police in east Jerusalem. Riots erupted in east Jerusalem Friday as
thousands of Palestinians massed for the boy's burial.
Near
the town of Qalansawe, protesters also pulled over a car driven by an
Israeli Jew on Saturday, pulled him out and set the vehicle on fire,
police spokeswoman Luba Samri said. The driver was not injured. Several
other Israeli cars were also torched, she said. Dozens of protesters
were arrested across the country throughout the day.
Protests
subsided by noon but resumed in the evening with violent demonstrations
in several Arab towns in the north of the country, police said.
Israel's
public security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, visited areas of
friction and said police would display "zero tolerance" toward those
"who take the law into their own hands and harm innocent people."
Israeli
Arabs, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, hold
citizenship rights. But they often face discrimination and mostly
identify with the Palestinians. Even so, violent riots like these are
rare.
Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem also
used an electric saw to damage the light rail that connects the heavily
Arab populated eastern sector of the city with the mostly Jewish West,
Samri said.
President Shimon Peres spoke with
Arab leaders Saturday night in Israel urging calm. "We must unite to
prevent tragedies and loss of life. Together we can lower the flames and
protect the innocent people, he said.
The
chaos began after three Israeli teenagers, one of whom was a U.S.
citizen, were abducted in the West Bank on June 12, sparking a huge
manhunt that ended with the gruesome discovery of their bodies earlier
this week.
In a separate incident, relatives
told The Associated Press that Abu Khdeir's 15-year-old cousin Tariq, a
U.S. citizen who goes to school in Florida, was beaten by police during
clashes on Thursday ahead of the funeral. The U.S. Consulate had no
immediate comment on the report.
The Florida
chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the U.S.
Department of State to demand that Israel immediately release Khdeir.
His
parents, Suha and Salah, said Tariq was detained but had been treated
at an Israeli hospital. They released photos showing his face swollen
and badly bruised.
Samri, the Israeli police
spokeswoman, said that Tariq Abu Khdeir had resisted arrest and attacked
police officers. He was detained with a slingshot in his possession
used to hurl stones at police, along with six other protesters,
including some armed with knives, she said, adding that several officers
were hurt in that specific protest, one of many that day.
Tariq's father said he witnessed his son's arrest and insisted the boy was not involved in the violence.
Amateur
video of what he said was the beating aired on a local television
station, and he said he could recognize his son from his clothing.
The
channel that aired it, Palestine Today, is funded by Iranian-backed
Islamic Jihad, a militant group that has carried out suicide bombings
and other attacks aimed at civilians.
Other footage shows uniformed men dragging someone on the ground.
The face of the person cannot be seen in either video, and the circumstances leading up to the beating are not shown.
Israel's justice ministry said an investigation had been opened over the footage.
The
rocket fire on Beersheba Saturday was the first since 2012, which came
during intense fighting between Israel and Gaza militants.
Israel
launched a massive crackdown on the Islamic militant group Hamas after
the abduction of the Israeli teens, while retaliatory Palestinian rocket
attacks and Israeli airstrikes intensified. The military says
Palestinian militants have fired more than 150 rockets at southern
Israel, and it has responded with airstrikes on more than 70 targets in
Gaza.
