However, the fallout led to mass unrest between Israel and Palestine in the Gaza Strip, eventually leading to seven weeks of war. The third suspect has had his verdict delayed after a last minute insanity plea.
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Yesterday’s verdict could further increase Israeli-Palestinian tensions amid a two-month wave of violence that has been convulsing the region.
Two Israeli brothers received sentences earlier this year in a plea bargain.
The court determined as well that the Yosef Haim Ben-David, the main defendant who is 31 and related to both teens, carried out both crimes he has been charged with. “He is clearly misleading the court”, Hussein Abu Khdeir said.
A Palestinian terrorist attempted to stab a man at Gush Etzion junction on Tuesday morning. “Judge: Ringleader drove carIn his ruling, Judge Jacob Zaban decided in that Mr. Ben David & the 2 minors snatched Abu Khdeir off an east Jerusalem sidewalk in Jul. 2014 & burned him alive in a forest west of the city”. The two accomplices, beat the Palestinian teen unconscious in the back of a auto being driven by Ben David, according to their court confessions. “The suspect can not get away with this crime, which he reenacted in detail for the police”.
According to Alarabiya, the court said that the three of them admitted to kidnapping Mohammed Abu Khdeir, torturing him and burning him alive, in what they described as a revenge for the death of three Israeli men, days before kidnapping Abu Khdeir.
The deaths of the three Israelis triggered an Israeli crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank.
During the trial Israeli security services showed a video of the defendants practicing striking a potential Palestinian victim, filmed a few days before they committed the murder.
It caused the deaths of more than 2 100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, while Israel counted 73 dead on its side, mostly soldiers.
Despite Ben David having pleaded insanity throughout the trial, no evidence was ever presented to support the claim – until last Thursday.
The court had previously rejected Ben David’s insanity defense.
Haifa University legal expert Emanuel Gross told the Associated Press that minors found guilty of murder can be held for life, but the punishment is frequently lighter.
The Palestinian teenager’s father slammed the trial as “a lie” during an interview with Israeli Army Radio.
Ben-David had failed to speak in court to defend himself throughout the proceedings.
Ben-David and the two unnamed minors confessed to the crime and even reenacted the grisly murder for investigators, according to police.
Two Israeli teenagers were convicted Monday at a Jerusalem court, in the killing of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy in 2014.
“I’m truly disappointed”, Ekram Juha, director of the Bethlehem mayor’s office, said of the Palestinian Authority’s plans.
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The Palestinian health ministry identified the dead Palestinian as 16-year-old Mamoon Raed Muhammed al-Khateeb. The Palestinians say the violence is rooted in frustration over almost a half-century of Israeli occupation and a lack of hope for obtaining independence. One of the teenagers then grabbed Muhammad’s throat and pushed down on it with his elbow, the documents said, and when his arm grew exhausted, the other teenager helped him keep up the pressure. But more visits by Jewish religious activists and ultra-nationalist Israeli politicians to the complex, where two biblical temples once stood, have done little to convince Palestinians.
