Revenge Killing? Of Palestinian Teen Leads To Violent Clashes.

Israeli security forces and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem engaged in intense clashes Wednesday morning after reports circulated that an Arab youth was kidnapped and murdered, possibly in an attack meant to avenge the recent abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers.

                                        

Although Israeli police had yet to confirm the circumstances of 16-year-old Mohammad Abu Khieder’s disappearance, the incident stoked already soaring tensions in the region, raising the specter of wider violence between Palestinians and Israelis.

Street battles broke out between security forces and residents from the boy’s neighborhood in the Arab part of the city, which is annexed by Israel. Palestinian protesters hurled firebombs and stones at Israeli police and soldiers and smashed and set fire to light-rail stops in the neighborhood. Israeli forces responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and smoke grenades, injuring two journalists, one seriously. Two Israeli journalists were attacked by Palestinian protesters.

Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police received reports early Wednesday that a teenager had been pulled into a car in the Shuafat neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Israeli police set up roadblocks, and within an hour and a half they found a badly burned body in a forest on the outskirts of Jerusalem, he said, adding that forensic tests were being conducted to determine the identity.

The attack occurred one day after Israel buried three teenagers who had been kidnapped near a Jewish settlement in the tense, Israeli-occupied West Bank on June 12. Their bodies were discovered Monday in a field near the West Bank city of Hebron, prompting a national outpouring of anger and grief. Police are investigating whether Wednesday’s killing had a “criminal or nationalistic” motive, Rosenfeld said.

Washington Post