RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Violent protests sparked by the abduction and killing of a Palestinian teenager spread to Arab villages in Israel yesterday, presenting a new challenge to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel has stayed silent on the investigation into the death of an East Jerusalem youth who Palestinians believe was kidnapped and killed by far-right Jews, but the Palestinian attorney-general was reported as saying he had been burned alive.
“The direct cause of death was burns as a result of fire and its complications,” Mohammed Al-A’wewy was quoted as saying by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa late on Friday.
Israeli-Palestinian tensions have risen sharply since three Israeli teens were kidnapped on June 12 and later found dead in the occupied West Bank.
This was followed on Wednesday by the kidnapping of Mohammed Abu Khudair, 16, in his neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. His charred body was found hours later in a forest on the edge of the city.
Saber Al-Aloul, the director of the Palestinian forensic institute, attended the autopsy, which was carried out by Israeli doctors. Al-A’wewy said Al-Aloul had reported soot had been found in Khudair’s respiratory canal, which meant that “the boy had inhaled this material while he was burnt alive.”
Burns covered 90 percent of the body and there was a cut to the head. Samples such as fluids and tissue were taken for more lab examinations to complete the legal medical report.
At Khudair’s funeral on Friday, furious Palestinians chanted “Intifada! Intifada,” calling for a new uprising against Israel. Stones thrown at Israeli police were met by tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets in one of the most highly charged displays of enmity in Jerusalem in years.
At least one Palestinian was hurt in confrontations in the city of Nablus overnight, medical staff said.
The protests spread yesterday to normally calm Israeli Arab areas, mainly along roads in the centre and north of the country where protesters threw stones and firebombs at passing cars. Dozens were arrested in these clashes, a police spokeswoman said.
A Jewish driver was forced from his vehicle and told to flee before his car was burned at one location while at another, a woman suffered light injuries from rocks thrown at her car.
