Zee Media Bureau
Jerusalem: The funeral for the slain Palestinian teenager, who was killed in retaliation to the murder of three Israeli teenagers days ago, will be held Thursday in Jerusalem after noon prayers .
The funeral for the slain Palestinian teen Mohammed Abu Khdair will be held today following the noon prayers.
Three days after three Israeli teens, said to have been kidnapped by Hamas militants, were found dead, a Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdair was meted out the same fate, as unknown men abducted and murdered him and threw his body into the forests in east Jerusalem.
The Palestinians accused Israeli extremists of abducting and killing an Arab teenager and burning his body Wednesday, sparking hours of clashes in east Jerusalem and drawing charges that the youth was murdered to avenge the killings of three kidnapped Israeli teens.
Abu Khdeir`s family said they had no doubt about the killers, accusing extremist Israelis of killing him to avenge the deaths of the Israeli teenagers.
"Who else could do this? There`s no one else," said the teen`s father, Saed Abu Khdeir. He said he spent the day with police and gave DNA samples to help identify the body.
As news of the youth`s disappearance spread, hundreds of Palestinians in east Jerusalem took to the streets, torching light-rail train stations and hurling stones at Israeli police, who responded with stun grenades and rubber-coated bullets. Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to virtually all of the city`s Palestinian population, in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area. The Palestinians seek the area as the capital of a future state, and tensions in the volatile eastern sector often boil over into violence.
The clashes continued throughout the day, emptying streets in east Jerusalem`s normally bustling Beit Hanina neighborhood. Masked Palestinians hiding in alleyways and a neighborhood mosque hurled rocks toward Israeli forces, who occasionally responded with stun grenades. Two people were taken to a hospital with light injuries, police said, and the clashes left a main road littered with stones, debris and burning tires that spewed black smoke into the air.
The so-called revenge attack by Israeli militants, has been condemned by both Israeli and Palestinian leaders with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calling for a swift inquiry into the "reprehensible murder" and called on people to respect the rule of law.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said it was clear extremist Jewish settlers were responsible and called on Israel to bring the killers to justice.
"The settlers have killed and burned a little boy. They are well known," Abbas said, accusing Israel of tolerating settler violence toward Palestinians. "I demand that the Israeli government hold the killers accountable."
The death added to the already heightened tensions caused by the killings of the three Israeli teenagers, whose bodies were discovered Monday just over two weeks after they disappeared in the West Bank. Israel accused Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, of being behind the abductions, which led to the largest ground operation in the West Bank in nearly a decade, with Israel arresting hundreds of Hamas operatives as part of a broad manhunt.
The discovery of the bodies led to a national outpouring of grief, with tens of thousands of people attending a funeral Tuesday in which the teens were laid to rest side-by-side. As the burial took place, hundreds of young, right-wing Israelis marched through downtown Jerusalem screaming for revenge.
With Agency Inputs
