Murder of the arab boy

Arab teen killed in capital; revenge attack suspected

16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian teenager whose body was found Wednesday, July 2 in Jerusalem’s forest area

The body of an Arab teenager was found in the Jerusalem Forest Wednesday morning and police suspect he may have been kidnapped from East Jerusalem overnight and killed in a revenge attack for the killing of three Israeli teens.

Police said they were also investigating several possible motives in the teen’s killing. Residents said the youth, identified as Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir, 16, was loaded into a car by “three settlers.”

Dozens of Arabs massed on the light rail tracks in the neighborhood of Shuafat and clashed with Israeli security forces early Wednesday when reports of the boy’s death broke.

The body, which was charred and bore signs of violence, was found an hour after police were informed of a youth from Shuafat being forcefully loaded into a car.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the “despicable murder” of the Palestinian teenager and “asked the investigating authorities to work as quickly as possible” to find out who was behind it and what their motivation was, a statement from his office said. The prime minister urged all sides not to take the law into their own hands, the statement said.