Ramallah: The family of a Palestinian teen burned to death by Israeli extremists has dismissed their sentencing as a show trial, whose verdict will be reversed when the media frenzy surrounding it dies down.
“There is no justice or fairness in Israel. The criminals will spend only sometime of their sentences in prison and later they will be released secretly,” Suha Abu Khair, the mother of Mohammad Abu Khdair, told Gulf News. “Justice has not been served at all in Mohammad’s case and the family will never keep their mouths shut.”
An Israeli court on Thursday sentenced two young Israelis to life and 21 years in prison for the burning alive of Mohammad, part of a cycle of violence that led up to the 2014 Gaza war.
The two Israelis were minors at the time of the chilling attack in which they and a third man snatched Mohammad, 16, from an east Jerusalem street and subsequently killed him.
Israeli colonist Yosef Haim Ben-David, 31, is said to have led the attack on Mohammad but his lawyers say he suffers from a mental illness and was not responsible for his actions at the time.
The court found that he committed the crime but is yet to rule if he is mentally competent.
The two others were 16 when they were charged in 2014 but are now adults. They have not been identified because they were minors.
Israel is often accused by Palestinians, the United States and human rights organisations of dealing lightly with Israeli terrorism. In January, the US ambassador Daniel Shapiro raised the regime’s ire when he accused Israel of having double standards in its dealings with Israeli terrorism.
“Too much vigilantism goes unchecked and at times there seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians,” he had said.
Life sentences were the maximum available to the court that tried Mohammad’s killers.
Suha Abu Khair vowed to approach international courts for justice for her son. She described the court sentences against the killers as mere ink on paper and that nothing will be done against the perpetrators “who will enjoy their freedom soon”.
“The criminals should have been given a sentence that is equal to their crime only,” she said, stressing that she has not got a fair sentence for the brutal death of her son.
“I feel that I truly lost Mohammad now with this court sentence. The court has not given me what is right, fair and just for Mohammad,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli regime’s military on Thursday sealed off the home village of the three Palestinian men who staged a deadly attack in Jerusalem and carried out a number of arrests there.
Citing “situation assessments,” the military said no one can exit or enter the village of Kabatiya in the northern West Bank until further notice.
Such internal closures were common during the second Palestinian uprising but have been rarely used in recent years.
Wednesday’s attack with automatic weapons, knives and explosive devices killed a 19-year-old police officer and wounded another in one of the most brazen attacks of the current round of violence roiling the region.
The nearly five-month long wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence has killed 154 Palestinians and 27 Israelis. Most of the Israelis targeted were uniformed officials.
In the latest violence, police said two 13-year-old Palestinian girls stabbed and lightly wounded a security guard at a bus station in the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Ramle on Thursday. A photo from the scene shared by police showed two kitchen knives on the ground beside a calculator, pens and other school supplies. The girls, who are Israeli citizens, were arrested at the scene, police said.
- with inputs from agencies
