Palestinians commemorate anniversary of slain teen

Hundreds of Palestinians have demonstrated in occupied East Jerusalem and Ramallah to commemorate the anniversary of a teenager’s murder at the hand of Israelis last year.

Protesters in the streets of Abu Khdeir’s Shuafat neighbourhood in East Jerusalem on Thursday waved Palestinian flags and held up posters and images of the boy in a beige baseball cap.

“Mohammed Abu Khdeir, July 2, 2014: They kidnapped, tortured and burned you. Be a witness to their crimes,” banners read.

Israeli riot police and vehicles were deployed in force in Shuafat, the scene of riots following the murder.

Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, was abducted and and burned to death on July 2, 2014, weeks after the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank.

Those incidents were part of a spiral of violence that led to Israel’s invasion of Gaza Strip that lasted 50 days and killed more than 2,200 people, making 2014 the bloodiest year of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the UN.

Abu Khdeir was kidnapped from East Jerusalem, and his burned body was found hours later in a forest in the western part of the city.

Three Israelis were eventually charged with the killing, saying it was in revenge for the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank.

They are currently on trial in Jerusalem.

The boy’s father, Hussein Abu Khdeir, told AFP on Thursday he wanted to see them put away for life.

“We’ve been through a really hard time. They burned him alive, and we burn inside now,” he said.

“His mother cries just at the mention of his name. I’m trying to be strong in front of my children, who’ve been traumatised by the death of their brother,” he said.

“The most important thing is that justice is pursued for my son. I want his killers to spend the rest of their lives behind bars, with no pardon.”

The June 2014 abduction of Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach from a hitchhiking stop near Hebron sparked a vast Israeli search operation in which hundreds of Palestinians were arrested and at least five killed.

Israel immediately blamed the kidnappings on Hamas, the movement that controls Gaza, rounding up hundreds of suspected members in the West Bank.

The brutal revenge killing of Abu Khdeir was followed by an uptick in rocket fire from Gaza, and the launch on July 8 of a full-scale Israeli military operation against the territory.