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Jerusalem on Edge as Palestinian Teenager Is Buried Jerusalem on Edge as Palestinian Teenager Is Buried
(about 2 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Militants in Gaza fired six rockets into southern Israel on Friday morning, extending the recent spate of cross-border violence, as a funeral was held in Jerusalem for a Palestinian teenager killed this week in what was widely presumed to have been an act of revenge by Jews for the June 12 abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers. JERUSALEM — Before the body arrived, young Palestinian men, some with faces covered by kaffiyehs, filled the main street, chanting about blood and guns, sacrifice and struggle.
Israel mobilized troops around Gaza on Thursday, though political and military officials insisted they had no interest in escalating the conflict there. The officials said they were only preparing to respond to moves by Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that dominates Gaza and that Israel holds responsible for last month’s attack on the three teenagers. The BBC quoted an anonymous Hamas official Friday as saying that a cease-fire deal would be announced within hours; spokesmen for the Israeli military and the prime minister’s office refused to respond to the report. Older men, most with beards long-ago gone white, waited quietly on plastic chairs in the shade of a blue tarpaulin. The women, many with tear-stained cheeks, were in the courtyard outside the home where 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir no longer lives.
“One possibility is that the fire stops, and the quiet continues,” the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Thursday night at an Independence Day event at the residence of the United States ambassador to Israel. “Otherwise, the fire will continue, and then reinforced troops in southern Israel will use force.” Thousands thronged Friday afternoon to Shuafat, the East Jerusalem neighborhood where Muhammad was snatched and slain before dawn Wednesday, to give him a martyr’s burial after what is widely believed to have been a revenge attack by Jews angered by the abduction and killing last month of three Israeli yeshiva students in the occupied West Bank.
The recent days have been among the most tense between Israelis and Palestinians in a decade, with hateful social-media campaigns, street battles with security forces and rampant rumors all reflecting the intense debate about whether the long-running conflict has sunk to new depths. The funeral for the slain Palestinian youth, 16-year-old Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir, was seen as a potential flash point, particularly because it was coming on the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a point on the calendar that has often seen clashes. “Ululate, mother of the martyr, all the youth are your sons,” they chanted in Arabic. “We sacrifice our souls and blood for the martyr.” And: “Rest, martyr, we will continue the struggle.”
Muhammad’s body arrived in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat around 2:30 p.m., to chants of “Allahu akbar,” whistling, and firecrackers. He was buried wrapped in a white shroud, and after the conclusion of the funeral, the sound of automatic rifle fire was in the air, as the coffin used to carry him to the cemetery was carried out. The funeral was accompanied by some clashes between mourners and Israeli security forces that injured some mourners and police officers. It came against a tense backdrop of recent rockets and airstrikes between Israel and the Gaza Strip and fears that they would explode into a full-scale battle.
Earlier on Friday, Israeli forces blocked off streets around Jerusalem’s Old City and barred Muslim men under 50 from entering the compound of Al Aksa Mosque. Haaretz, an Israeli news outlet, reported on its website that the police had turned back dozens of young Palestinians who were trying to break through a blockade outside the Old City, and eight Palestinians were said to have been injured in clashes with the Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Rockets continued to soar into southern Israel on Friday: four before sunrise, four more by noon, a few around 5 p.m. Israel, which mobilized troops around Gaza Thursday but insisted it did not want an escalation, dropped no bombs there overnight.
By noon, there were no soldiers or police officers visible in Shuafat, from where Muhammad was snatched around 3:45 a.m. on Wednesday as he awaited the dawn prayer and prefast meal, and where he will be buried. “One possibility is that the fire stops, and the quiet continues,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Thursday night at an Independence Day event at the seaside residence of the United States ambassador. “Otherwise, the fire will continue, and then reinforced troops in southern Israel will use force.”
The main road was still littered with broken glass, stones, felled traffic lights and garbage from overturned bins after the violent confrontation on Wednesday between Palestinians and Israeli troops. Mourners and journalists had begun to gather outside Muhammad’s home under a blue tarpaulin strung with portraits showing his brown eyes beneath a white baseball cap. Local news organizations reported Friday that Israel had given leaders of Hamas, the militant Islamic movement that dominates in Gaza – and that Israel blames for the deaths of the three teenagers – 48 hours to stop the rockets or risk a major military operation. Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas official, told reporters in Gaza on Friday that contacts were underway to restore the cease-fire that ended eight days of cross-border violence in November 2012.
A banner with a different photo, where Muhammad wore a shy smile and the sides of his head were shaved, called him “the martyr of the dawn,” and said in Arabic, “Our martyrs in heaven and their dead in hell.” “Calm would be answered with calm,” Mr. Masri said during a demonstration by hundreds of Hamas supporters protesting what they called Israeli aggression against Palestinians.
After the noon prayer, hundreds of Palestinian young men filled Shuafat’s main road, chanting militant slogans as they awaited Muhammad’s body. “To Jerusalem we are going, martyrs in millions,” they said. “Rest, martyr, we will continue the struggle.” The recent days have been among the most tense between Israelis and Palestinians in a decade, with hate-filled social-media campaigns, street battles with security forces and rampant rumors all reflecting the intense debate about whether the long-running conflict has sunk to new depths. Many saw Muhammad’s funeral as a potential flash point, particularly because it came on the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a point on the calendar often punctuated here by clashes.
There were old Hamas slogans, and songs of Fatah, the secular party that dominates the Palestine Liberation Organization. After a while, a voice came on a loudspeaker and urged the youth to sing national songs instead of war anthems. But after one — “Oh, Palestine! Palestine lived on” — the tone quickly turned. “Explode the skull of the Zionist,” came the next chant. The Israel police also braced for violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem’s Old City, where men younger than 50 years of age were barred from attending prayers at the Al Aqsa compound, but there were no major incidents.
Under a canopy, a fight broke out because Muhammad’s family wanted only Palestinian flags flying, and some had brought the white and black banners of Islamic Jihad. “We are 100 factions and we cannot fight,” warned a voice over a loudspeaker. “We should respect the martyr and respect each other.” Micky Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman, said the investigation was still continuing Friday into whether Muhammad’s brutal murder – his burned body was left in the Jerusalem Forest – was in fact an act of vengeance or some other type of crime. The victim’s relatives said investigators had pressed them on whether it might have been a family dispute.
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israel Police, said on Friday that the investigation into Muhammad’s killing was continuing, to “determine if the incident was criminal or nationalistic.” Muhammad’s relatives have complained that the police were pressing a theory that the killing resulted from a family fight, and that officers were questioning various members of the family about their involvement. But in Shuafat, there was no doubt. A huge banner with a photo of Muhammad wearing a shy smile and a sleek haircut called him “the martyr of the dawn.” Talk of conspiracy and cover-up was rife in the mourning tent, where a blue tarpaulin was strung with another portrait of Muhammad with big brown eyes beneath a baseball cap.
“The police know very well that those who killed my son were Jews, and they have their pictures” from security cameras, Muhammad’s father, Hussein Abu Khdeir, 48, said as he awaited the arrival of his son’s body on Friday. “It is clear from their faces that they were Jews.” “The police know very well that those who killed my son were Jews, and they have their pictures” from security cameras, the boy’s father, Hussein Abu Khdeir, 48, said Friday morning. “It is clear from their faces that they were Jews.”
“I don’t feel life inside me after his killing,” the father said in an interview. “Nothing in life is good anymore.” On Tuesday, the three dead Israeli teenagers, Naftali Fraenkel and Gilad Shaar, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, were wrapped in Israeli flags and buried side by side, eulogized by Israel’s prime minister, president and chief rabbis. There were no speeches at Muhammad’s funeral Friday, where dignitaries included the grand mufti of Jerusalem; Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Parliament; and Mustafa Barghouti, a leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Mr. Tibi, who lives nearby and knows Muhammad’s family, drew a sharp contrast between Israel’s intense three-week search for the kidnappers of the three yeshivas and the authorities’ actions since Wednesday’s attack.
“It’s an ordinary message that the life of Jewish Israelis is much more valuable than the life of others, especially Palestinians,” Mr. Tibi said in an interview. “This is a double standard, both moral and political, and it’s part of the anger in the street here, about what the Israelis are doing to our lives.”
The body, wrapped in a Palestinian flag, arrived about 2:30 p.m. and was greeted with calls of Allahu akbar – God is Great – whistling, and firecrackers. After a family visit inside the mosque and a brief prayer outside, the crowd carried Muhammad in an open-topped green wooden box down the main road, past the Israeli police line at Shuafat’s edge, and finally to the cemetery, where automatic rifle fire into the air marked the burial. There were some stones thrown at Israeli forces, who responded with tear gas.
Earlier, the throngs had chanted an old Hamas slogan and sung a fighting song from Fatah, the more moderate faction that dominates the P.L.O. “The gun lives on,” they said. “To Jerusalem we are going, martyrs in millions.” There were calls for suicide bombings, a third intifada, or uprising, a revenge attack in the Jewish settlement of Gilo, in South Jerusalem.
After a while, a voice came on a loudspeaker and urged the youth to sing national songs instead of war anthems. There was one — “Oh, Palestine! Palestine lived on” — then the tone quickly turned. “Explode the skull of the Zionist,” came the next chant.
The family asked that only Palestinian flags accompany the coffin, but a few people flew the black and white banners of Islamic Jihad. “We are 100 factions and we cannot fight,” warned a voice over a loudspeaker. “We should respect the martyr and respect each other.”
Amid all the politics, there was also a father yearning for a son taken to soon.
“I don’t feel life inside me,” Hussein Abu Khdeir said. “Nothing in life is good anymore.”