Prosecutors urge life sentences for killers of Palestinian teen

Israeli prosecutors on Wednesday called for life sentences for two young Jews convicted last year of burning alive a Palestinian teen, part of an upsurge in violence ahead of the 2014 Gaza war.

Prosecutors made the request at a sentencing hearing in a Jerusalem court for the two, who were minors at the time of the chilling attack in which they and a third man snatched Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, from an East Jerusalem street and subsequently killed him.

Yosef Haim Ben-David, 31, is said to have led the attack on Abu Khdeir but his lawyers say he suffers from a mental illness and was not responsible for his actions at the time.

The court has found that he committed the crime but has yet to rule if he is mentally competent. The two others were 16 when they were charged in 2014 but are now adults.

The home of Muhammad Abu Khdeir in Shuafat, Jerusalem, July 8, 2014 (photo credit: Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel)

Hussein Abu Khdeir, the father of the murdered teen, called for Israeli authorities to destroy the homes of the murderers in keeping with the policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinian terrorists.

Khdeir said that if the government would have demolished the homes of his son’s killers, the Dawabsha family would not have been murdered in the July 31, 2015, firebombing attack in the West Bank village of Duma.

“I ask that you give them the harshest punishment, demolish their homes, just as they do for Arabs,” he said in court, according to Channel 10. There must be equality in punishment. If they would have demolished their homes, the Dawabsha family would not have been burned. Light sentences encourage them to commit these sorts of attacks.”

Hussein Abu Khdeir, the father of the slain Palestinian teen Muhammed Abu Khdeir, outside his home in East Jerusalem, October 21, 2014 (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Right-wing Jewish extremist Amiram Ben-Uliel was charged earlier this month with murder, for having carried out the attack which killed three members of the Dawabsha family. The sole surviving member, five-year-old Ahmed, is being treated for severe burns in an Israeli hospital.

The court’s actions are being closely watched at a time of renewed Israeli-Palestinian tensions. A wave of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks targeting Israelis began in October.