Two Teens in Israel Convicted of Killing 16-Year-Old Palestinian

While the two youths will be sentenced in December, and Ben David would reappear in court in January next year.

As NPR’s Emily Harris reports, a ruling on the accused ringleader, 31-year-old Yosef Haim Ben-David, has been delayed.

Palestinians assailants with vehicles, firearms and knives have killed during the past two months at 19 Israelis in a tide of violence.

“The court is not honest, they are sympathetic to the criminals”, said Hussein Abu Khdeir, Muhammad’s father.

“Palestinians have little trust in the Israeli justice system”.

“I was in shock when the verdict was announced in court, I am still in shock now – I can’t really express it”.

The judge determined that Ben David drove the vehicle while his two accomplices beat Abu Khdeir unconscious in the back seat. Then Ben David lit the match, according to Zaban.

Over the course of the hearing many from the Abu Khdeir family said they want their relative’s killers to receive the same treatment as Palestinians accused of killing Israelis.

A 40-year-old man was lightly injured in an alleged attempted attack on Tuesday morning at Gush Etzion Junction in the West Bank according to reports by MDA. Six Israeli civilians and 67 Israeli soldiers were killed.

Asher Ohayon, the public defender who represents Ben-David, told Israel Radio that there were “real reasons” the evaluation was not submitted earlier, but he did not elaborate. “The settlers wanted to make themselves recognizable even in killing”.

Adnan Damiri, the Palestinian commissioner of the Palestinian security apparatuses and its spokesman, said the Israeli court’s decision in the case of Abu Khudeir “enables the murderers, by the help of the Israeli government, to escape from punishment”. Israel has a mandatory life sentence for adults convicted of murder, Gross said.

During the trial, the two minors turned against Ben David, blaming him saying he had given them pills before the killing, but the court viewed a surveillance tape of Ben David and the two minors preparing to carry out the murder, by practising punches and strikes. Ben-David lived in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and is the son an ultra-Orthodox rabbi.

Three defendants, including two minors, confessed to the abduction, bludgeoning and burning of the 16-year-old.

Khdeir’s death prompted riots by Palestinians in Jerusalem. The Palestinians say the violence is rooted in frustration over a lack of hope for obtaining independence.

Prosecutor Uri Corb said yesterday that the Abu Khdeir case was a stain on Israeli society.

The incidents came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas shared a rare handshake at a global climate conference in Paris, but no substantial talks were reported.