Israelis jailed for murdering teen
Print Edition
An Israeli court yesterday sentenced two Israelis in the 2014 murder of a 16-year-old Palestinian, sending one to prison for life for a crime that sparked deep soul-searching in Israel and was part of a series of events that led to the Gaza war later that year.
The court sentenced a second Israeli, believed to have had a lesser role in the crime, to 21 years in prison. Another Israeli is awaiting a verdict following a psychological examination.
“The sentence imposed on the defendants reflects what we asked for and the barbaric and atrocious act,” said Ori Korb, the state prosecutor. He said the murder marked a “moral nadir.”
The Israelis sentenced yesterday snatched Palestinian teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir from an east Jerusalem neighborhood in July 2014, driving him to a Jerusalem forest where he was burned to death. The murder was carried out in revenge for the abduction and killing earlier that summer of three Israeli teens by Palestinians said by Israel to have been Hamas operatives.
In response to the abduction, Israel rounded up Hamas members in the West Bank, sparking a barrage of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Days after the Abu Khdeir murder, Israel began airstrikes in Gaza in an attempt to quell the rockets, resulting in a 50-day war that killed more than 2,200 Palestinians and 73 Israelis.
Hussein Abu Khdeir, Mohammed’s father, told Israeli Radio that the family planned to appeal the shorter sentence to the Israeli Supreme Court.
Abu Khdeir’s murder was roundly condemned across the Israeli political spectrum and shocked Israelis. A year later, suspected Jewish extremists torched the West Bank home of a Palestinian family, killing three of its members, including a toddler, and wounding a 4-year-old boy, who is still receiving treatment in an Israeli hospital.
Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have continued to rise since, with a nearly five-month wave of violence now roiling the region. The violence has killed 27 Israelis and 154 Palestinians; of those Israel says 109 were attackers and the rest killed in clashes with security forces.
Israel says the violence has been fueled by a Palestinian campaign of lies and incitement. The Palestinians say it is rooted in frustrations stemming from nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation.
The Israeli military yesterday sealed off the West Bank village of Kabatiya, home of three Palestinian men who staged a deadly attack against police in Jerusalem on Wednesday, making a number of arrests.
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