July 7, 2014

Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to escalate. The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas declared today that Israel will “pay a tremendous price” for the deaths of eight Palestinian militants who were killed overnight in Israeli rocket attacks on Gaza. The Israeli military responded that it had only hit “terror sites and concealed rocket launchers” in response to rocket and mortar fire from Gaza into Israel.

On July 2, a Palestinian boy was murdered in an apparent reprisal for the murder of three Israeli teenage boys, whose bodies were found in the West Bank on June 30. An autopsy revealed that the Palestinian boy, Mohammad Abu Khieder, was burned alive, setting off public outcry in both the West Bank and Gaza as well as in Israel.

Israeli police have arrested six Jewish suspects in connection with the murder of Palestinian boy. Three of the suspects have confessed to abducting him from outside his home and killing him in an act of revenge.

A series of murders of teenage boys, both Israeli and Palestinian, has roiled relations between Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. (World Book map; map data © MapQuest.com, Inc.)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today issued a statement about the murder of the Palestinian youth: “We acted immediately to apprehend the murderers. We will bring them to trial and they will be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law.” The murderers of the three Israeli boys remain unapprehended.

Additional World Book article:

• Middle East 2007 (a Back in Time article)