Clashes ramp up on West Bank

Report Palestinian teen burned alive incites street violence

Israeli riot police officers take positions during clashes with Palestinians at the northern Arab Israeli town of Ar'ara, Saturday, July 5, 2014. Clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters spread from Jerusalem to Arab towns in northern Israel Saturday, following the funeral of an Arab teenager who Palestinians say was killed by Israeli extremists in a revenge attack. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Israeli riot police officers take positions during clashes with Palestinians at the northern Arab Israeli town of Ar'ara, Saturday, July 5, 2014. Clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters spread from Jerusalem to Arab towns in northern Israel Saturday, following the funeral of an Arab teenager who Palestinians say was killed by Israeli extremists in a revenge attack. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Sunday, July 6, 2014

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- An autopsy showed that an Arab teen who Palestinians say was killed in a revenge attack was burned to death, officials said Saturday, while Palestinian militants fired two rockets toward a major southern Israeli city.

Clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters spread early Saturday from Jerusalem to Arab towns in northern Israel. Hundreds of people took to the streets, throwing rocks and fire bombs at officers who responded with tear gas and stun grenades, police said.

Palestinian Attorney General Abdelghani al-Owaiwi said he had received initial results from a Palestinian doctor who was present at the teen's autopsy in Tel Aviv. He said they indicate that 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, whose death has sparked protests in his east Jerusalem neighborhood, suffered burns on "90 percent of his body."

"It was obvious through autopsy that there was black smoke on the breathing airways, windpipes and in the two lungs," according to the attorney general's website. "This is proof of inhalation of this material during the torch, while he was alive."

His account is the first public details of the preliminary findings. The autopsy was conducted by Israeli doctors and attended by the Palestinian coroner, none of whom could immediately be reached Saturday. The Israeli Health Ministry could not be reached for comment.

Al-Owaiwi also said the teen had suffered wounds on the right side of his head, apparently from a rock or another hard object.

Abu Khdeir's charred body was found in a forest Wednesday after he was seized near his home. Palestinians immediately accused Israeli extremists of killing him to avenge the deaths of three Israeli teens who had been abducted and killed in the West Bank. Israeli police said an investigation is underway and that they have not yet determined who killed the boy or why.

Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said there had been no breakthroughs as investigators continued to consider revenge and other possible criminal motives, and that legal restrictions prevented him from discussing details of what evidence they had found so far.

"We're trying to understand and get to exactly what took place and what was the background," Rosenfeld said. "It's critical, as far as the Israeli police are concerned, it's critical for us to determine what the motive was."

Israeli leaders have widely condemned the killing of the Palestinian youth, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that those responsible would be brought to justice.

Palestinians took to the streets in protests after news of the youth's death Wednesday and clashed with police in east Jerusalem. Riots broke out in east Jerusalem on Friday as thousands of Palestinians gathered for the boy's burial.

"We can't live like this. Every day our people are killed," said one Palestinian youth who was protesting in East Jerusalem and who declined to give his name for fear of being identified by the Israeli authorities. He said he and his friends could see an intifada in their future, one similar to the uprisings that convulsed the region in the late 1980s and early 2000s.

Near the town of Qalansawe, protesters Saturday pulled over a car driven by an Israeli Jew, pulled him out and set the vehicle on fire, police spokesman Luba Samri said. The driver was not injured. Several other Israeli cars were torched, she said. Dozens of protesters were arrested across the country.

Protests subsided by noon but resumed in the evening with violent demonstrations in several Arab towns in the north of the country, police said.

Rosenfeld said 20 people had been arrested in the Jerusalem clashes and 12 others were detained in the north.

Israel's public security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, visited areas of friction and said police would display "zero tolerance" toward those "who take the law into their own hands and harm innocent people."

Israeli Arabs, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, hold citizenship rights. But they often face discrimination and mostly identify with the Palestinians. Even so, violent riots like the recent ones are rare.

Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem also used an electric saw to damage the light rail that connects the heavily Arab eastern sector of the city with the mostly Jewish west, Samri said.

President Shimon Peres urged calm when he spoke with Arab leaders Saturday night. "We must unite to prevent tragedies and loss of life. Together we can lower the flames and protect the innocent people, he said.

With peace talks dead and no end in sight to Israeli occupation, the Israeli government "has gradually been building up the factors for the eruption of a new intifada," said Qais Abu Layla, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council who stressed that the new uprising would include nonviolent means such as boycotts.

Others were more hopeful that the Middle East's latest crisis would dissipate. The killing of Abu Khdeir "took place during a delicate situation, but I do believe it will not escalate much more than what we see today," said Giora Eiland, former head of Israel's National Security Council.

There were no reports of unrest in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank.

As clashes continued late into the evening, Israelis in the southern part of the country took cover in bomb shelters as Palestinian militants continued to fire rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said its Iron Dome defense system intercepted the rockets that were aimed at the southern city of Beersheba. The military said at least 29 other rockets and mortar rounds had been fired at Israel during the weekend. It said it had retaliated with airstrikes on militant sites in Gaza.

The rocket fire on Beersheba was the first since 2012, which came during intense fighting between Israel and Gaza militants.

Earlier in the day, the BBC quoted an unnamed official from Hamas as saying that a cease-fire with Israel was forthcoming. But no such cease-fire materialized, and Israel responded with the airstrikes against what it called "Hamas terror sites."

On Friday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman visited the southern town of Sderot, which has borne the brunt of the rocket fire, and said Israel should not consider a cease-fire with Hamas because "no such agreement can be reached," Israeli news media reported.

Israel blames Hamas for the kidnapping and killing last month of the three Israeli teens. The three -- Naftali Fraenkel, 16 , Gilad Shaar, 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19 -- were buried Tuesday.

The chaos began after the teens, one of whom was a U.S. citizen, were abducted in the West Bank on June 12, sparking a manhunt that ended with the discovery of their bodies last week.

In a separate attack, relatives said Abu Khdeir's 15-year-old cousin Tariq, a U.S. citizen who goes to school in Florida, was beaten by police during clashes Thursday ahead of the funeral. The U.S. Consulate had no immediate comment on the report.

Human-rights groups Saturday lashed out at the police in response to Tariq Khdeir's beating. They circulated a video of the beating and pictures of the teen's badly bruised and swollen face, and complained that he was being held by the police without charge.

"The continued state-sanctioned violence against children is unlawful and unacceptable," Addameer, a Palestinian group that supports prisoners in Israeli jails, said in a news release.

Samri said the youth had resisted arrest and attacked police officers. He was detained with a slingshot in his possession that was used to hurl stones at police, along with six other protesters, some of whom were armed with knives, she said.

Rosenfeld, the police spokesman, said the video circulated by the rights groups was "edited and biased" and did not represent the scope of the events.

The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the U.S. State Department to demand that Israel immediately release Tariq Khdeir.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman Jen Psaki said an official from the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem had visited Tariq Khdeir on Saturday.

"We are profoundly troubled by reports that he was severely beaten while in police custody and strongly condemn any excessive use of force," Psaki said in a statement. "We are calling for a speedy, transparent and credible investigation, and full accountability for any excessive use of force."

She also expressed concern about "the increasing violent incidents," and urged Israelis and Palestinians "to take steps to restore calm and prevent harm to innocents."

The teen's parents, Suha and Salah, said Tariq Khdeir was detained but had been treated at an Israeli hospital.

Information for this article was contributed by Mohammad Daraghmeh and Yousur Alhlou of The Associated Press; by Jodi Rudoren of The New York Times; and by Ruth Eglash, Griff Witte and Sufian Taha of The Washington Post.

A Section on 07/06/2014