The Israeli attacks killed more than 2,200 people, making 2014 the bloodiest year of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the United Nations.
Advertisement
A Palestinian brandishing a knife attempted to stab a pedestrian at a junction near the settlement bloc and was shot dead by an Israeli soldier, police and the army said. In the aftermath of Khdeir’s murder, one of his cousins, a 15-year-old Palestinian-American boy, was beaten by Israeli police officers in an assault caught on camera.
The stabbings, shootings and vehicle rammings have mainly been carried out by “lone wolf” attackers who have defied calls for peaceful resistance to Israel’s occupation.
Israel Radio said six Islamic Jihad militants from the town of Tubas were in Palestinian custody, accused of filling a gas balloon with explosives in order to blow up a military target, an attack that would have marked a major escalation in violence.
The Palestinian youth’s death triggered violent protests and was a milestone in an escalation of violence that led to the Israel-Hamas war.
Palestinian protesters throw stones at Israeli troops during clashes following a demonstration to demand the release of bodies of Palestinian attackers being held by Israeli authorities, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Sun…
Contacted by Reuters, officials in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s U.S.-backed administration and Islamic Jihad spokesmen had no immediate comment on the report, which cited unnamed Palestinian sources. “But there has to be a change in the PA leadership’s behaviour”.
The 31-year-old, viewed as the ringleader, was found to have committed the crime, but the court held off on convicting him after his lawyers submitted a report in recent days arguing his mental state meant he was not responsible for his actions.
The Palestinians on Monday had largely condemned an Israeli court that refrained from convicting the abductor and murderer of a Palestinian boy in east Jerusalem 16 months ago.
Palestinians and the victim’s family harshly criticised the delay.
Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, was abducted and killed on July 2, 2014, weeks after the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. But if Ben-David’s upcoming psychiatric evaluation essentially gets him off the hook for his role in Abu Khdeir’s murder, any efforts made by the Israeli government to take a harder stance against settler violence may be overshadowed by Palestinian anger.
Advertisement
Yitzhak Gabai, in his early 20s and from a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem, was the third person to be convicted and sentenced in the December 2014 arson attack.
