AFTER the 15-year-old American cousin of murdered Palestinan teenager Mohammed Abu Khedair was beaten up by Israeli security forces last week, the US State Department has demanded ‘full accountability for any excessive use of force’.
Tariq Khedeir, 15, a high school sophomore in Tampa, Florida, was visiting his Palestinian relatives in Jerusalem when he was attacked and detained.
Tariq is seen in separate videos being held down and pummelled by men in the uniform of Israeli security forces.
Mobile phone footage taken during protests last Thursday shows two Israeli border policemen holding down Tariq Khedair on wasteland in East Jerusalem.
The footage shows one of them punching the teenager in the head before the boy is taken away. Photographs taken later show him with a severely swollen face.
US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Tariq Khedeir, who is still in custody, was visited by a consulate official on Saturday.
She said yesterday: ‘We are profoundly troubled by reports that he was severely beaten while in police custody and strongly condemn any excessive use of force.
‘We are calling for a speedy, transparent and credible investigation and full accountability for any excessive use of force.’
This came as it has emerged that Mohammed Abu Khedair, the Palestinian teenager who was abducted and killed in Jerusalem last week, died from being burned alive.
Citing a medical autopsy, Palestinian General Prosecutor Mohammed al-Auwewy said traces of smoke inside the lungs of the 16-year-old youth, indicate that the smoke was inhaled while the fire was burning.
The teenager’s death sparked widespread outrage among Palestinians, who believe he was killed in retaliation for the abduction and killing of three Israeli teens.
Israeli authorities are investigating who killed Khedair and why, said Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Israeli police have arrested a group of Jewish extremists in connection with the kidnap and murder of the Palestinian teenager, an Israeli official said yesterday, shortly after it was reported that there were six arrests in connection with the case.
Israeli police also arrested dozens of people protesting against 16-year-old boy’s murder.
‘Around 35 people were arrested overnight, almost half of them minors,’ Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
Of those, 22 were arrested in and around the northern city of Nazareth, the most populous Palestinian town in Israel.
The rest were arrested in Taibe in the north and the Triangle region around Umm el-Fahm, northeast of Tel Aviv, where clashes continued into Sunday, Samri added.
‘We are demonstrating against this incitement to hatred by Israelis online, who are saying “death to Arabs”,’ one demonstrator in Qalansuwa said.
