Israel arrests six in slaying of Palestinian

Won’t let extremists incite the region, Netanyahu says

JERUSALEM -- Israel arrested six Jewish suspects Sunday in the slaying of a Palestinian teenager who was abducted and burned alive last week -- a crime that set off violent protests in Arab sections of the country.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said there was a "strong possibility" that the motive for the killing was "nationalistic," indicating that it was a revenge attack by rightist Jewish extremists for the recent kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank.

"We will not allow extremists -- it doesn't matter from which side -- to inflame the region and cause bloodshed," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a nationally televised statement. "Murder is murder, incitement is incitement, and we will respond aggressively to both."

He promised to prosecute those responsible. Netanyahu also told his Cabinet on Sunday that "we will do whatever is necessary to restore quiet and security to the south."

The region has been on edge since the three Israeli teens were kidnapped while hitchhiking last month. Last week, the teens' bodies were found in a West Bank field in a crime that Israel blamed on the militant group Hamas.

Just hours after the youths were buried, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian from east Jerusalem, was abducted near his home, and his charred remains were found shortly afterward in a Jerusalem forest. Preliminary autopsy results found he was still alive when he was set on fire.

Palestinians immediately accused Israeli extremists of killing the youth in revenge.

The suspects remained in custody and were being interrogated, authorities said.

An Israeli official said there were six suspects and described them as young men, including several minors, all of whom lived in the Jerusalem area. Three of them are suspected of taking part in the killing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

Lawyers representing the suspects said they had not been allowed to meet with them.

Rosenfeld said the suspects also were being questioned to determine whether they were linked to an attempted kidnapping of a Palestinian child, Mousa Zaloum, 9, from the same area of east Jerusalem a day before Abu Khdeir was abducted. Rosenfeld said the child's mother had made an official complaint to the police that was being investigated separately.

Mousa was photographed with red marks on his neck. Local residents told the news media that he had been slashed with a knife or choked, and they identified the would-be kidnappers as Israelis. His mother struggled with the kidnappers, and her son escaped.

Still, after weeks of taking the Palestinian leadership to task for having entered into a pact with Hamas, Netanyahu appeared unbowed.

"The murderers came from the territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority; they returned to territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority," he said of the kidnappers of the Israeli teenagers. "Therefore, the Palestinian Authority is obliged to do everything in its power to find them, just as we did, just as our security forces located the suspects in the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir within a matter of days."

Abu Khdeir's family members said the arrests gave them little joy and that they had little faith in the Israeli justice system.

"I don't have any peace in my heart, even if they captured who they say killed my son," said his mother, Suha. "They're only going to ask them questions and then release them. What's the point?

"They need to treat them the way they treat us. They need to demolish their homes and round them up, the way they do it to our children."

Abu Khdeir's death triggered violence in his neighborhood, as angry crowds destroyed train stations and hurled rocks. The unrest spread to sections of northern Israel over the weekend.

On Sunday, the situation in east Jerusalem, home to most of the city's Palestinians, appeared to be calming down. Businesses, markets and roads that had been cordoned off were reopened.

After the Israeli teenagers were found dead, several hundred Jewish extremists had marched through downtown Jerusalem calling for "death to Arabs." Social media sites were also flooded with calls for vengeance.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said her ministry is investigating some of the anti-Arab incitement seen on Facebook last week.

"These things need to be cut when they are small," she told Channel 2 TV. "At this moment, everybody's job should be to lower the flames."

Cabinet minister Jacob Peri, a former head of the Shin Bet security agency, said he had met with Arab leaders in northern Israel to calm tensions. President Shimon Peres, a Nobel peace laureate, also was in contact with Arab leaders.

About 50 people were arrested in several days of demonstrations after Abu Khdeir's death, and 15 police officers and two civilians were injured, authorities said.

A 15-year-old Palestinian-American cousin of Abu Khdeir was also injured in clashes with Israeli security forces in east Jerusalem.

The boy, Tariq Abu Khdeir, who goes to school in Florida, was ordered confined to his home in Israel for nine days while police investigate what they say was his participation in throwing stones at officers during a violent protest.

As youths clashed with security forces in Shuafat on Thursday, Tariq Abu Khdeir appeared on an amateur video being beaten by Israeli border police. The footage was spread worldwide Saturday.

The U.S. State Department said it was "profoundly troubled" by reports that he was beaten, and Israel's Justice Ministry launched an investigation.

As Tariq Abu Khdeir was released to his family, he was crying and appeared badly bruised, with both eyes and his mouth swollen.

"I feel better. I am excited to be back home," he said.

Watching the video of himself being beaten and kicked for the first time Sunday afternoon, he said he was shocked.

"I don't believe what happened to me," he said.

He lost consciousness during the beating and was taken to a hospital. Tariq Abu Khdeir said he only had been watching the clashes and denied that he had been involved in stone-throwing.

State Department spokesman Jen Psaki said that "if the investigation is concluded promptly, Mr. Khdeir should be able to return to Florida as planned with his family later this month."

His parents said they plan on returning to the U.S. with their son July 16.

"Israel always has an excuse for what the police do, what the army does," Salah Abu Khdeir, father of the beaten youth, said by phone.

The situation along Israel's southern border with the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, remained tense. Gaza militants have stepped up rocket fire in recent weeks, drawing Israeli airstrikes.

The Israeli military said late Sunday that it carried out an airstrike on militants involved in firing rockets at Israel. It said at least 25 rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza over the course of the day.

Gaza medical official Ashraf al-Kidra said that two men were killed and one injured. Relatives said they belonged to a militant group.

Information for this article was contributed by Josef Federman, Yousur Alhlou, Daniel Estrin and Ian Deitch of The Associated Press; by Calev Ben-David and Alan Katz of Bloomberg News; and by Isabel Kershner, Said Ghazali and Fares Akram of The New York Times.

A Section on 07/07/2014

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