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| A Palestinian holds a Molotov cocktail during clashes with Israeli border police in Jerusalem on Wednesday, July 2, 2014. The suspected abduction of an Arab teen followed by the discovery of a body in Jerusalem on Wednesday ignited clashes between Israeli police and stone-throwing Palestinians, who saw it as a revenge attack for the killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank. |
JERUSALEM
(AP) -- The Palestinians accused Israeli extremists of abducting and
killing an Arab teenager and burning his body Wednesday, sparking hours
of clashes in east Jerusalem and drawing charges that the youth was
murdered to avenge the killings of three kidnapped Israeli teens.
Seeking
to calm the explosive situation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu urged a swift inquiry into the "reprehensible murder" and
called on people to respect the rule of law. Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas said it was clear extremist Jewish settlers were
responsible and called on Israel to bring the killers to justice.
"The
settlers have killed and burned a little boy. They are well known,"
Abbas said, accusing Israel of tolerating settler violence toward
Palestinians. "I demand that the Israeli government hold the killers
accountable."
The death added to the already
heightened tensions caused by the killings of the three Israeli
teenagers, whose bodies were discovered Monday just over two weeks after
they disappeared in the West Bank. Israel accused Hamas, the Islamic
militant group that controls Gaza, of being behind the abductions, which
led to the largest ground operation in the West Bank in nearly a
decade, with Israel arresting hundreds of Hamas operatives as part of a
broad manhunt.
The discovery of the bodies led
to a national outpouring of grief, with tens of thousands of people
attending a funeral Tuesday in which the teens were laid to rest
side-by-side. As the burial took place, hundreds of young, right-wing
Israelis marched through downtown Jerusalem screaming for revenge.
Hours
later, relatives of Mohammed Abu Khdeir said the 17-year-old was forced
into a car in a neighborhood of east Jerusalem that quickly sped off. A
burned body believed to be his was found shortly afterward in a
Jerusalem forest, though police said late Wednesday they were still
awaiting forensics tests to make a positive identification.
Police
spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said authorities were looking at "a number of
different directions" in the killing, including nationalistic or
criminal motives. "We are waiting for the final results of the autopsy,"
he said.
But Abu Khdeir's family said they
had no doubt about the killers, accusing extremist Israelis of killing
him to avenge the deaths of the Israeli teenagers.
"Who
else could do this? There's no one else," said the teen's father, Saed
Abu Khdeir. He said he spent the day with police and gave DNA samples to
help identify the body.
As of Wednesday
evening, police said the testing was still ongoing. Police were also
reviewing security camera footage taken from the scene. Relatives said
the video showed a car nearing the youth, people stepping out and
forcing him into the vehicle and speeding away.
The
family of one of the Israeli teens condemned the death of the
Palestinian youth. "There is no difference between (Arab) blood and
(Jewish) blood. Murder is murder," said Yishai Fraenkel, an uncle of one
of the teens.
As news of the youth's
disappearance spread, hundreds of Palestinians in east Jerusalem took to
the streets, torching light-rail train stations and hurling stones at
Israeli police, who responded with stun grenades and rubber-coated
bullets. Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to virtually all of the
city's Palestinian population, in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the
area. The Palestinians seek the area as the capital of a future state,
and tensions in the volatile eastern sector often boil over into
violence.
The clashes continued throughout the
day, emptying streets in east Jerusalem's normally bustling Beit Hanina
neighborhood. Masked Palestinians hiding in alleyways and a
neighborhood mosque hurled rocks toward Israeli forces, who occasionally
responded with stun grenades. Two people were taken to a hospital with
light injuries, police said, and the clashes left a main road littered
with stones, debris and burning tires that spewed black smoke into the
air.
The atmosphere in east Jerusalem remained
tense well past midnight. Hundreds of Palestinians, many of their faces
covered, occupied a main road leading into Beit Hanina and the
neighborhood of Shuafat. Three train stops were charred. Police
continued to patrol the area. Women and children poked their heads out
of windows and were repeatedly ordered by Palestinian men to stay
inside.
Netanyahu called on authorities to
swiftly investigate the "reprehensible murder" and urged all sides "not
to take the law into their own hands."
But international condemnations came quickly.
In
Washington, the Obama administration denounced the killing as a
"heinous murder" and called for the perpetrators to be brought to
justice.
"There are no words to convey
adequately our condolences to the Palestinian people," said Secretary of
State John Kerry, calling the killing "sickening."
The
U.N. Security Council condemned the "heinous" killing "in the strongest
terms" in a press statement, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
called for the perpetrators of the "despicable act" to be promptly
brought to justice and a lowering of tensions.
In
a statement, the European Union condemned the killing "in the strongest
terms" and welcomed Israel's pledge to investigate. It urged all
parties to show "maximum restraint."
Despite the calls for calm, fighting continued along Israel's southern border with Gaza.
Late
Wednesday, Gaza militants fired a barrage of eight rockets toward
southern Israel, for a total of 20 rockets and mortars fired on Israel
throughout the day, the army said. It said anti-rocket defenses
intercepted two rockets. There were no reports of casualties or damage.
The
army said it carried out one airstrike on a mortar-launching site in
Gaza, scoring a "direct hit." The heavy barrage late Wednesday raised
the likelihood of further Israeli reprisals.
Early
Thursday, a rocket fired from Gaza slammed into a house in the southern
Israeli border town of Sderot, causing heavy damage to the structure
and a nearby road and knocking out electricity throughout town, the army
said. The family was huddled inside a shelter, and no one was hurt, the
army said.
