Mohammad Hussain Abu Khudair, a 17-year-old with a bright future, became the latest victim of Israel’s collective punishment campaign.
According to family and eyewitnesses Abu Khudair was bundled into a dark coloured car late by three men close to his home in the Occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Shuafat while en route to prayers.
A body was found shortly afterwards in another part of the city. It was described on the radio as a “suspected revenge attack” for the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers from the southern West Bank on June 12.
At the home of Abu Khudair, relatives showed the Guardian shaky footage purportedly showing the teenager talking to the men who abducted him. The footage was taken from a CCTV camera in front of his uncle’s shop around 4am on Wednesday.
Local residents said Israeli police had later taken away the originals of the footage.
According to the family, a Honda had passed on the street near to the house several times before stopping to talk to the boy. Two women walking nearby also reportedly heard shouts. Abu Khudair’s mother said that her son, a high school student,usually took a bottle of water and sat outside the shops next to the local mosque before praying.
“He’s a good boy, not a troublemaker,” she said as clashes took place outside her house. “I heard people say that someone was missing, someone had been kidnapped. I was so worried. I tried to find my son. When I couldn’t, I tried again. We need protection,” she added. “We are surrounded by lunatic settlers who take our land and now take our children.”
His uncle, Saeed Abu Khudair, said the colonists took him randomly.
"It could have been any other Palestinian teen," he said. His father said he was an outstanding student and a kind-hearted person who was loved by everyone. Palestinians have expressed fear over indiscriminate "revenge" attacks following the discovery of the bodies of three Israeli teenagers, whom Israel has blamed Hamas for their deaths.
Hamas has not claimed responsibility for the attacks and Palestinians believe the entire saga is an orchestrated campaign to give Israel the green light to crack down on Hamas and drive a wedge into the unity government that was formed between Fatah and Hamas recently.
Since it began its crackdown, over 500 people, mainly Hamas supporters have been arrested, 1,300 homes have been ransacked or demolished and ten Palestinians have been killed in cold blood, many of them youngsters.
With inputs from the Guardian
