Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in east Jerusalem Thursday to commemorate the first anniversary of a teenager being burned to death in an Israeli revenge attack in the run-up to the Gaza war. Mohammed Abu Khder, 16, was abducted and killed 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 a 50-day war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas that killed more than 2,200 people, making 2014 the bloodiest year of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the UN.
Protesters in the streets of Abu Khder's Shuafat neighbourhood waved Palestinian flags and held up posters and images of the boy in a beige baseball cap, an AFP correspondent said.
"Mohammed Abu Khder, 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.
Abu Khder was kidnapped from Israeli-annexed 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.
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