Beaten Palestinian-American teen Tariq Khdair to be held under house arrest
A Palestinian-American teenager who activists say was subjected to a brutal beating by Israeli border police will be held under house arrest for nine days.
Fifteen-year-old Tariq Khdeir from Florida is said to have been beaten while in custody in East Jerusalem.
The teenager had been freed on bail but a judge has now ruled he is to remain in the Jerusalem area of Beit Hanina during the investigation.
The boy is the cousin of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, whose abduction and killing in Jerusalem on Wednesday sparked violent protests and calls from Palestinians for a new uprising against Israel.
Police say Tariq was among a group of youths attacking police officers.
Mobile phone footage appears to show two Israeli policemen repeatedly punching him in the head.
His family say he was not involved in the violence that followed last week's abduction and murder of his cousin.
The court ruling came on the day Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoned Mohammed Abu Khdeir's father and promised his attackers would be prosecuted.
"I wish to express my shock and the shock of Israel's citizens over the despicable murder of your son," Mr Netanyahu told the father, Hussein Abu Khdeir, according to a statement.
"The murderers will be brought to trial and prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
The youngster's death has triggered street clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in East Jerusalem, violence that has spread to Arab towns and villages across Israel.
Six Jews have been arrested in what police suspect was a revenge attack for the abduction and killing of three Jewish youths.
Israel says Hamas militants killed the trio, an allegation the Islamist group has neither accepted nor denied.
Israel's outgoing president Shimon Peres and his successor, Reuven Rivlin, promised in a joint editorial published in Yedioth Ahronoth, the country's best-selling newspaper, there would be no cover-up in the investigation of the Palestinian's death.
"The bloodshed will stop only when we all understand that it is not our unhappy fate to live together, but rather our destiny to do so," they wrote.
Meanwhile fresh Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have killed about nine Palestinian militants.
Most of the deaths occurred at Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza strip, where at least six Hamas gunmen were killed.
A spokesman for Israeli prime minister Mark Regev says the airstrikes are to protect Israeli citizens.
"Clearly put it's to the end the rocket fire on Israeli civilians from the Hamas controlled Gaza strip," he said.
"We've had over the last three weeks, we've had over 150 rockets and missiles launched fired on Israeli communities and our goal is to stop that rocket fire."
original post found her http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-07/israeli-airstrike-kill-nine-in-gaza/5579646
No comments :
Post a Comment