Palestinian protesters hold placards depicting Mohammed Abu Khudair, during a protest marking the one year anniversary of his killing, after prayers on the third Friday of Ramadan in Jerusalem’s Old City, July 3, 2015. The two accomplices, beat the Palestinian teen unconscious in the back of a auto being driven by Ben David, according to their court confessions.
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The two minors were 16 years old at the time of the crime, according to their attorney Avi Himi.
An Israeli court today convicted two Jewish minors who abducted and burned Mohammed Abu Khdeir alive in July 2014.
The boy’s murder sparked violence in the Arab suburb of Shuafat in Jerusalem after news spread of the discovery of his body.
Witnesses told WAFA an Israeli army force accompanied by staff from Israel’s Civil Administration broke into the area and handed a written notification to demolish the headquarters of an-Nour Cooperative Society, a local charity, in addition to the house of Abdullah Jaber, which shelters his family.
Additionally, the Guardian added a sub-headline indicating the Palestinian death toll in the current wave of violence, which has mostly revolved around near-daily knifing attacks against Israelis, predominantly in the West Bank but also in central Israel.
The brutal revenge killing of Abu Khdeir was followed by an uptick in rocket fire from Gaza and the launch on July 8 of a full-scale Israeli military operation against the Palestinian enclave.
The court found him guilty, but, as a result of the insanity plea, not responsible for his actions, Al Jazeera reported.
During the trial, one of the convicted Israeli minors claimed he did not realize the three of them would kill Abu Khdeir, while the other said he took part in strangling the Palestinian youth in the auto and pouring gasoline on his motionless body.
Outside the court a group of Abu Khdeir family members were holding posters with Mohammed’s image on them as the verdict was delivered.
“I’m afraid that other Ben-Davids will follow a similar path should the court fail to hand a deterrent punishment”, he said.
Ben David’s lawyer, Asher Ohayon, is a representative of the right-wing “Zionist legal aid organization” Honenu, which has a track record of securing watered-down convictions for Jewish Israeli defendants accused of nationalist hate crimes.
“When we attempt to maintain that we’re better than our enemies – and that I believe that we’re better than them – we should look only at that occasion as a mirror”, he said. Khdeir’s death was suspected to be a revenge attack.
Sentencing for the two who were convicted was set for January 13, while a hearing was scheduled for December 20 for Ben David, from the Adam settlement in the occupied West Bank. Then Ben David lit the match, according to Zaban.
The EU does not recognize Israeli control over the territories seized during the Six-Day war in 1967 – West Bank, East Jerusalem as well as the Golan Heights – disregarding their current status under Israeli law.
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“Technology in 3G – he observed – is at the end and 4G is already available in several countries and already partially in Israel, Palestinians will need to develop a service and spend some 35 million dollars, which in a couple of years will be old”.
