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Reports: 3 admit to murder of Palestinian teenager; tensions persist
The investigation over the murder last week of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khedir reportedly took a step forward yesterday after three of the six suspects arrested on Sunday were said to have admitted to the killing.
The discovery of Abu Khedir’s body last Wednesday in the Jerusalem Forest sparked riots in East Jerusalem and beyond. Fears that the murder was carried out as an act of revenge for the murder of three Israeli teenagers, Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Shaer and Naftali Frenkel, whose bodies were discovered last week appear to have been confirmed after the Shin Bet security agency confirmed on Sunday that six Jewish Israeli extremists had been arrested as suspects.
The exact identities of the suspects and other details of the investigation remain under a gag order. However, it was widely reported in the Israeli media yesterday that three of those arrested confessed to the kidnapping and murder of Abu Khedir and re-enacted the crime in the Jerusalem Forest for the benefit of police investigators.
Also yesterday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telephoned Abu Khedir’s father Hussein, to offer his condolences. Netanyahu told him “I wish to express my shock and the shock of Israel’s citizens over the despicable murder of your son” and pledged “The murderers will be brought to trial and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” Meanwhile, in a joint column in Yediot Ahronot yesterday, President Shimon Peres and his successor, President-elect Reuven Rivlin warned against incitement and further commented, “The bloodshed will stop only when we all understand that it is not our unhappy fate to live together, but rather our destiny to do so.”
Meanwhile, clashes continued between Arab Israelis and Israeli police overnight. In Shuafat, where Abu Khedir lived, several dozen local residents threw projectiles including Molotov cocktails at police and a confrontation also took place in Beit Safafa, also in East Jerusalem. Around fifty people threw rocks at police in Tamra, near Haifa, where six arrests were made.