JERUSALEM - The body of an abducted Arab teenager was found in a Jerusalem forest early Wednesday, fanning outrage among Palestinians and threatening to further escalate the broader tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The death appeared to be an Israeli revenge killing for the kidnap and killings of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank last month.
The father of the abducted youth, Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir, 16, said police had identified the body through DNA tests.
The discovery of the body came about an hour after Palestinians said an Arab teenager had been forced into a car in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina. Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said the police had erected roadblocks in the area to locate the vehicle. The body was discovered shortly afterward in a forest near the entrance to Jerusalem. Rosenfeld said police were investigating both criminal and nationalistic motives for the killing.
Palestinian leaders held Israel responsible, while Israeli leaders called for restraint until the facts became clearer in an effort to calm the charged atmosphere.
The Israeli minister of internal security, Yitzhak Aharonovich, urged residents to “lower the volume” regarding the suspicion of a revenge attack by Jews.
The body found in the forest was taken to Israel’s Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.
Relatives of the abducted youth said he had left his father’s kitchenware and appliance store around 3:30 a.m. and was sitting on a wall outside the mosque with some other teenagers waiting for the dawn prayer that starts the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Mahmoud Abu Khdeir, the imam of the mosque and a cousin, said the other youths left to get food for the traditional predawn meal when a gray Hyundai pulled up at 3:45 a.m. and its occupants forced Muhammad into the car.
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority has demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel “condemn the kidnapping and killing” of Muhammad “as we condemned the kidnapping and killing” of the three Israeli teenagers, according to WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency.
As news of the killing spread, the police increased their presence in Jerusalem. Clashes broke out between Palestinian youths and Israeli security forces along the main road that links the neighborhoods of Beit Hanina and Shuafat. Dozens of teenagers, some using slingshots, hurled stones at the security officers, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades.
