Free Republic

On June 12, three unsuspecting Israeli teens, one of whom had U.S. citizenship, were kidnapped and cold-bloodedly murdered minutes later by two Arabs affiliated with the Hamas terrorist organization. Eighteen days later, their lifeless bodies were found partly buried in a field in southern Judea.Three days after the kidnapping, Secretary of State John Kerry belatedly condemned the criminal action and referred to it as a “despicable terrorist act.” The Secretary however, qualified his statement and was careful not to point fingers and lay blame at any specific entity though it was abundantly clear that Hamas was culpable.The White House’s response...

The Palestinians accused Israeli extremists of abducting and killing an Arab teenager and burning his body Wednesday, sparking hours of clashes in east Jerusalem and drawing charges that the youth was murdered to avenge the killings of three kidnapped Israeli teens. Seeking to calm the explosive situation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged a swift inquiry into the “reprehensible murder” and called on people to respect the rule of law. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said it was clear extremist Jewish settlers were responsible and called on Israel to bring the killers to justice. “The settlers have killed and burned a...

Palestinians Fake Kidnap Report of Youth by ‘Israeli Settlers’ JULY 3, 2014 1:48 PM Dave Bender A group of Palestinian villagers in northern Samaria (the West Bank) on Wednesday night made a false “911″ call to Israeli Police, saying that a youth had been abducted by “Israeli settlers.” In the call, a resident of the village of Marda, near Tapuach Junction, alleged that two Jews had forced a youth into a vehicle and fled off, according to Israel’s Ma’ariv daily. In immediate response, the local Israel Defense Forces battalion commander closed off several local traffic arteries, including the heavily-used junction,...

Analysis: There Had Been Previous Attempts to Kidnap Members of Abu Khdeir’s Family JULY 4, 2014 12:56 PM 16-year-old murder victim Muhammad Abu Khudair. Photo: Twitter. Israeli media are all over the place in guessing who is responsible for the kidnap and murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Haaretz pretends to lay out the facts known so far, and reaches its predictable conclusion: Who was Mohammed Abu Khdeir? Here’s what can be published that hasn’t already been reported. He was 16 and a half, a student in the electricity vocational program at an Amal high school. His father is an electrician,...

Israel-Gaza border heats up: Rockets vs. warplanes Israeli air force stages 15 strikes on ‘Hamas targets’ and militants fire up to 16 rockets toward Israeli south. Ongoing Israeli violence fuels justifiable anger of Palestinians JERUSALEM - Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza Thursday and militants hit back with 15 rockets, further hiking tension after a day of violence triggered by the suspected revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager. But there was no immediate sign of a return to the clashes that had engulfed east Jerusalem on Wednesday, following the kidnap and murder of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khder in what many believed was...

Palestinian news agency Maan quoted Attorney General Mohammed Aluweiwi Saturday as saying the initial findings of a post-mortem indicated the presence of smoke in the boy's lungs, meaning he was still alive while he was being burned. Abu Khder also suffered a head wound, but that did not cause his death, Aluweiwi added. Israeli police said Saturday they still could not confirm the motive for Abu Khder's murder. A spokeswoman told AFP police were investigating "all possibilities," and that there was a gag order on all details of the investigation.

World leaders were unanimous Wednesday in condemning the killing of Mohammad Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian who was most likely kidnapped and murdered in revenge for the death of three Israeli teens that were abducted and recently found dead in the West Bank. In a series of posts on Twitter, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the US is paying close attention to the investigation into the death of 17-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir. She also offered condolences to his family and the Palestinian people. US Secretary of State John Kerry also condemned the murder, calling the act "sickening" and saying,...

An Arab teenager whose abduction and murder triggered violent protests was burned alive, autopsy reports show, as clashes over the killing spread Saturday from Jerusalem to Arab Israeli towns. Mohammed Abu Khder, 16, was abducted from his Shuafat neighborhood in Jerusalem early Wednesday, and his charred body found not long afterwards in a the Jerusalem Forest. Palestinians have blamed Jewish extremists for killing him in revenge for the kidnapping and murder in last month of three Israeli teenagers. Palestinian news agency Maan quoted Palestinian Authority Attorney General Mohammed Aluweiwi on Saturday as saying the initial findings of a post-mortem indicated...

Once again, Arab media is bringing up the centuries old “matzah blood libel”, that Jews use the blood of non-Jews to make matzah for Passover. The blood libel originated in 1144 with the fabricated story of William of Norwich, England and is continuously used by Arabs. In the latest incident, the editor of Hamas's paper Al-Risalah, Wisam Afifa, associated the death of Mohammed Abu-Khder, the Palestinian Arab teen whose body was found on Wednesday in Jerusalem, with the blood libel. The editorial was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). In it, Afifa claimed that, just as the...

Photo CCTV footage has emerged which purportedly shows the moment 16-year-old Mohammed Abu-Khder was abducted on Tuesday night from the Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina in Jerusalem, hours before his dead body was found burned in Jerusalem Forest. The video was obtained by the Daily Telegraph, which said it had been handed the footage by the Abu-Khder family. The British paper said that while Israeli police had obtained film from two nearby cameras showing the abduction from different angles, the family had not handed this film to police yet - although it did not explain why the family would withhold...