According to the statement released by the Israeli government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had called the father of a murdered Palestinian teenager on Monday regarding the latter's son's death, who was found burned in a Jerusalem forest last week. Reuters said that police have suspected that 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair's death had been a revenge attack for the abduction and eventual killing of three Jewish teenagers.
The subsequent deaths from the two clashing factions had fueled the street protests in East Jerusalem, and violence had quickly spread to Arab villages and towns across the country.
Netanyahu purportedly said to Hussein Abu Khudair, the Palestinian boy's father, "I wish to express my shock and the shock of Israel's citizens over the despicable murder of your son. The murderers will be brought to trial and prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
Reuters said Netanyahu's phone cal followed after Israel had announced that it currently has six Jewish suspects in police custody. It fell short to identify the names of the suspects, presumably to curb more street violence.
Other family members of Abu Khudair has since echoed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' view, who said that the teenager was killed by far-right Jewish settlers. Israel, on the other hand, insisted that Hamas militants have killed the three Jewish teens, who had disappeared in the West bank on June 12. Their bodies were found later in the territory last Monday.
Israel's outgoing president, Shimon Peres, and his successor, Reuven Rivlin, vowed in a joint editorial on newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on Monday that there will be no cover-up in the investigation of Abu Khudair's death. The duo are also calling for the end to incitment by both sides in the years-old conflict.
"The bloodshed will stop only when we all understand that it is not our unhappy fate to live together, but rather our destiny to do so," they both wrote.
