Conviction of Killers of Palestinian Teen in Jerusalem

A court in Israel has convicted two Jewish extremists in the case of the abduction and burning alive of a Palestinian teenager. The Israeli court in Jerusalem on Thursday, February 3, sentenced one of the two Jewish offenders to life imprisonment and the other to 21 years in prison. Meanwhile, the court has prohibited the publication of the names of these two convicts because they were 16 and 17 years old at the time of the crime. The Jerusalem court had previously ruled that these two killers acted under the guidance of an adult relative. Yosef Ben David, the main perpetrator of the abduction and torture leading to murder, who is a 32-year-old settler, has been placed under the supervision of 'psychiatrists' to confirm his 'mental health' despite being convicted in the same court. According to Israeli media, the family of the murdered Palestinian teenager, who attended all trial sessions, on Thursday demanded a life sentence for the convict who received 21 years and also requested life imprisonment for the main killer. The Abu Khdeir family has also called for the demolition of the homes of these Jewish criminals. Meanwhile, the Israeli prosecution stated that it considers these settlers as murderers and, rejecting pressure from right-wingers, will not appeal these sentences aimed at reducing imprisonment. Muhammad Abu Khdeir was abducted on June 30, 2014, in northern Jerusalem, and after several days, his burned body was found in a forest around the city. The Jewish criminals stated that they decided to abduct a Palestinian teenager to take revenge for the abduction and killing of three Jewish teenagers that had occurred a few days earlier, and they randomly saw Abu Khdeir in the Palestinian neighborhood of 'Shuafat' and abducted him. The death of the three Jewish teenagers at the hands of two Palestinians affiliated with Hamas in early summer 2014 led to another series of violent events and eventually escalated into a large-scale military operation by the Israeli army against Hamas in Gaza. In the 51-day war, more than 2,400 Palestinians and about eighty Israelis were killed, resulting in widespread destruction in Gaza. Simultaneously, in a new wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, in the past two days, one Israeli female soldier was killed and another severely injured. These female soldiers were targeted during a confrontation with three Palestinian teenagers from the West Bank who had illegally entered East Jerusalem; Israeli police forces killed the three Palestinian teenagers on the spot. On Thursday, two 13-year-old Arab girls were arrested in the city of 'Ramla' in central Israel while attacking an Israeli guard with a knife, injuring him. The difference in the incident in the city of 'Ramla' is that these two girls are the youngest girls who have engaged in street attacks in the past six months, and both are Arab citizens of Israel, not Palestinians. Two weeks ago, a thirteen-and-a-half-year-old Palestinian girl was also killed while holding a knife at a checkpoint. In the street attacks six months ago, about one hundred and eighty Palestinians, mostly teenagers and young people, were killed in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, while 31 Israelis were killed. In this context, Israel has determined a 'minimum punishment' of three years in prison for stone-throwing by Palestinians. Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 72-year-old Palestinian woman.