Thousands of Palestinians gather for the funeral of Mohammad Abu Khdeir in Shu’afat. The young Palestinian was kidnapped, body was burned and killed . His charred body was found in a Jerusalem forest.
A new video has emerged showing the moment 16-year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was bundled into a car in al-Quds (Jerusalem), only to be found killed hours later.
By Robert Tait,
(Jerusalem) – Dramatic new footage has emerged that may show the moment when an Arab youth was abducted from the streets of an East Jerusalem neighbourhood before later being found murdered. The 10-minute video, shot from a CCTV security camera, shows 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir being approached by two men and then forcibly pushed into a car, relatives believe. While images in the film are indistinct, the Abu Khdeir family say they provide vital evidence of his abduction before his body was found burned in a Jerusalem forest in what they believe was a revenge killing by Right-wing Israelis in retribution for the abduction and murder of three Jewish teenagers, suspected to be the work of Palestinian militants.
The video – shot from a camera inside a shop across the street from where Mohammed is believed to have been sitting – shows what appears to be a light coloured car drive past a row of shops in the Shuafat neigbourhood. Although his outline is hard to determine in the video, the teenager’s relatives say he is sitting on the steps outside one shop.
The car then reverses up the street and out of the frame before two men are seen approaching the area on foot where he is believed to have been sitting and appearing to start a conversation.
The vehicle then reappears and stops at the place where the two men are, before driving forward slightly. It then reverses again to the original spot.
A few moments later, a struggle appears to ensue – ending in the group quickly getting into the car, which then speeds off through a set of traffic lights.
The Abu Khdeir family shared the video – which is believed not to have been seen by police – with The Telegraph and other media organisations on Thursday. Israeli police have removed two other pieces of CCTV footage which relatives say shows Mohammed’s abduction from different angles.
The new footage shows the date and time of the day on the bottom of the screen.
Just over three minutes and a half minutes elapse from the moment when the car first appears in the screen, at just before 3.48am on July 2, until it finally speeds off between 3.51 and 3.52am.
Mohammed’s family say he was abducted at between 3.45 and 4am.
The video emerged after a second day of clashes in the middle-class Shuafat neighbourhood between Arab youths and heavily armed Israeli police. Rioters tore up stones between the rails of Jerusalem’s light railway to use in their running battle with police, who appeared to keep a safe distance to avoid inflaming the situation.
Mohammed’s funeral is expected to take place in the area on Friday – attended by thousands of mourners – after his body is handed over to the family, following a post-mortem.
Forensic tests confirmed that the body found badly burned after Mohammed’s reported abduction was his, Hussein Abu Khdeir, 48, the youth’s father, said.
Mr Abu Khdeir accused police of asking him “ridiculous things” about his son. “They asked how much his pocket money was, who were his friends, did he have any enemies, if somebody hated him,” he said. “They even asked if he had been kidnapped before. They didn’t bring up the subject of him being kidnapped by settlers and when I raised it, they said, why are you saying that. It’s clear they wanted to put a lid on it.”
In the hours after his death, rumours appeared on Twitter that Mohammed had been killed by fellow Palestinians as part of a criminal gang feud or by his own relatives in a so-called honour killing amid unsubstantiated suggestions that he was gay. His family have dismissed such assertions out of hand and insist that he had no criminal connections or history of being in trouble.
The Israeli army deployed extra troops to southern Israel in preparation for stepped up military action against militants in Gaza after 30 missiles were reported to have been launched at Israeli towns in the border area in 24 hours, according to military sources. The move came after Israeli planes struck 15 targets in Gaza late on Wednesday and early on Thursday following several weeks of rocket fire.
Source: The Telegraph