The crisis in the Middle East has now gotten even worse: the kidnapped Palestinian teen believed killed in retaliation for the kidnapped and killed three Israeli teens was burned alive, an autopsy now shows. This all is apparentely part of the Bibical and now cliched “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” but the barbareity of kidnapping and murdering kids to make political statements has now been taken to a new (low) level with news that Mohammed Abu Khedair was burned alive:
Mohammed Abu Khedair, a Palestinian teenager who was abducted and killed in Jerusalem this week, died from being burned alive and hit with a blunt object to the head, according to Palestinian General Prosecutor Mohammed al-Auwewy, sourcing the medical autopsy.
Al-Auwewy said the autopsy discovered traces of smoke inside the lungs of the 16-year-old , meaning that it was inhaled during the burning.
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said his country is aggressively investigating the killing. “We’ll get to the bottom of it and catch those responsible,” he told CNN on Saturday.
The teenager’s death sparked widespread outrage among Palestinians and clashes with Israeli security forces broke out during his funeral on Friday.
More than 60 people were injured in fighting in parts of Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a group that said it was involved in evacuating injured Palestinians. It said the injuries mostly involved rubber bullets fired at the upper body and chest.
Israeli police said 13 of their officers were slightly injured in clashes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat, where Palestinian protesters were throwing rocks at police, who responded by firing rubber bullets and tear gas.
Here’s a CNN report:
Sometimes an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth simply results in people being unable to see or unable to speak out about a general ill that impacts an entire society, not only their own part of society.
Is snatching kids off the street and murdering them to make a statement now going to be a key part of the political game by extremists on both sides?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.