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2 Israelis Sentenced for 2014 Murder of Palestinian Teenager 2 Israelis Sentenced in 2014 Murder of Palestinian Teenager
(about 5 hours later)
JERUSALEM — An Israeli court sentenced two Israelis on Thursday for the 2014 murder of a 16-year-old Palestinian, sending one to life in prison for a crime that prompted deep soul-searching in Israel and that was part of a series of events that led to the Gaza war that year. JERUSALEM — It was a case that shocked Israel and the world: the brutal murder of a Palestinian teenager named Muhammad Abu Khdeir, 16. He was abducted on July 2, 2014, beaten, choked and then burned to death.
The court sentenced the second Israeli, believed to have had a lesser role in the crime, to 21 years in prison. A verdict for a third Israeli has been delayed pending a psychological examination. On Thursday, an Israeli court gave lengthy prison sentences to two young Jews involved in the murder: one for life and the other for 21 years. Their names have not been released because they were 17 and 16 at the time of the crime.
“The sentence imposed on the defendants reflects what we asked for and the barbaric and atrocious act,” said Ori Korb, the state prosecutor. He said the murder signified a “moral nadir.” Mr. Khdeir was killed the day after the emotional burial of three Israeli yeshiva students who had been kidnapped and brutally murdered by men affiliated with Hamas in the occupied West Bank, and his death was immediately seen as a revenge killing by Jewish extremists. The crime was condemned across the Israeli political spectrum.
The Israelis abducted a Palestinian teenager, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, from an East Jerusalem neighborhood in July 2014, driving him to a nearby forest before they killed him by setting him on fire. Tensions were high, Palestinian protests were widespread and rockets were fired from Gaza, and within a week, Israel was at war with Hamas in Gaza. Thousands of people died in the seven-week conflict of rocket strikes, bombardments and ground fighting, most of them Palestinians.
The murder was carried out in revenge for the abduction and killing that summer of three Israeli teenagers by Palestinians. Israel said they had been acting as Hamas operatives. The man who organized the murder of Mr. Khdeir and the two teenagers who were sentenced on Thursday all confessed to a revenge killing and were found guilty in November. But the man — Yosef Haim Ben-David, the main defendant in the case — pleaded insanity at the last minute, requiring a private psychiatric evaluation before he can be sentenced. The court will rule on his case later.
In response to the abduction, Israel rounded up Hamas members in the West Bank, a move that was met with a barrage of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. The court also ordered each of the teenagers to pay the Abu Khdeir family 30,000 shekels (about $7,700) in compensation.
Israel then began airstrikes in Gaza, resulting in a 50-day war that killed more than 2,200 Palestinians and 73 Israelis. The teenager who received the 21-year prison term was not sentenced to life because the court determined that he had not taken part in the actual murder, only in the actions that preceded it. “He is the youngest of the bunch, with potential for rehabilitation,” the court said in its ruling. “His actions are also vicious, as he captured the deceased, prevented him from resisting, assisted in strangling him. But nevertheless, he did not take part physically in the last stage that led to his beating and the pouring of fuel or oil on his body.”
Hussein Abu Khdeir, Mohammed’s father, told Israeli Radio that the family planned to appeal the shorter sentence to the Israeli Supreme Court. The Abu Khdeir family criticized the ruling and said both young men should have been given life sentences. The murdered boy’s father, Hussein, told reporters at Jerusalem District Court that the family wanted an appeal to be lodged with the Supreme Court.
The killing had been condemned across the political spectrum and shocked Israelis. “If there is no apartheid or racism, you will have to do this,” he said, arguing that the authorities had gone easy on the teenager because he is Jewish and not Arab.
But a year later, the West Bank home of a Palestinian family was set on fire in July, killing three people, including a toddler, and wounding a 4-year-old boy who is still receiving treatment in an Israeli hospital. The murdered boy’s mother, Suha, told reporters: “What kind of justice is this? I’m a mother who lost her son forever, while I’m sure they will be released in 10 years or less. Why? This isn’t justice. This is unfair. I won’t accept such a ruling.”
Tensions have been high since, and the latest round of violence has led to the death of 27 Israelis and 154 Palestinians; of those Israel says 109 were attackers and the rest killed in clashes with security forces. The state had sought life terms for both teenagers, but voiced satisfaction with Thursday’s sentencing. “I hope that the message will be relayed that actions of this kind are revolting and that we as a society will not accept them,” said Uri Korb, one of the prosecutors.
Israel has said the violence is the result of a Palestinian campaign of lies and incitement. The Palestinians have said it is rooted in frustrations stemming from nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation. Lawyers for the teenage defendants said that they, too, were considering an appeal.
Separately, the Israeli military on Thursday sealed off the home village of three Palestinian men who staged a deadly attack in Jerusalem and carried out a number of arrests there.
Citing “situation assessments,” the military had temporarily prohibited anyone from entering or exiting the village of Kabatiya in the northern West Bank. Minor clashes broke out in the area between Israeli troops and rock-throwing Palestinian youth.
Such internal closings were common during the second Palestinian uprising, a decade ago, but have been rarely used in recent years.
The attack on Wednesday was carried out with automatic weapons, knives and explosive devices killed a 19-year-old police officer and wounded another in one of the most brazen attacks of the current round of violence roiling the region. The three Palestinians, in their early 20s, were shot and killed by the police.