Israel boosts Gaza forces amid clashes after teen killings

In east Jerusalem’s Shuafat neighbourhood, masked Palestinians hurled stones and fireworks at Israeli police and sent burning car tyres rolling along streets in a second day of protest over the kidnap and murder of a 17-year-old Palestinian teenager.

Palestinians stand next to a crater which police said was caused by an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on July 3, 2014. Israel struck over 15 Hamas targets in Gaza overnight in response to constant roShow more

JERUSALEM // Israel deployed extra forces to its border with Gaza on Thursday after continued Palestinian rocket fire and heightened tensions following the suspected revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager in Jerusalem.

“We are moving and we have moved forces in order to serve defence activities and forward preparation, but we have no interest in escalation,” an army spokesman said.

The Israeli armed forces chief Lt Gen Benny Gantz sent a similar message in comments tweeted by the army. “We are looking for calm, not escalation, but if Hamas chooses to act against us we shall be ready,” he said.

Israeli warplanes pounded targets inside the Gaza Strip on Thursday and militants hit back with 16 rockets.

In east Jerusalem's Shuafat neighbourhood, masked Palestinians hurled stones and fireworks at Israeli police and sent burning car tyres rolling along streets in a second day of protest over the kidnap and murder of 17-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir.

Many believe his was a copycat killing following the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank last month.

Israel police said the motive for the Abu Khdeir’s killing was still not clear and have not said how he died.

His family’s lawyer, Muhannad Jbara, , said the police had been in touch late on Wednesday to formally confirm that the body found in a west Jerusalem forest was that of their son.

He said the boy’s body had been burnt “beyond recognition”.

It was not known when he would be buried.

In clashes on Wednesday, 232 Palestinians were injured, 178 of them in Shuafat alone, said Dr Amin Abu Ghazali of the Red Crescent in east Jerusalem.

Of that number, 187 were wounded by rubber bullets and six by live ammunition, he said.

Although police were still trying to identify the body at a forensics lab, Abu Khdeir’s family set up a mourning tent near a mosque in east Jerusalem. Some 100 people crowded into the tent, including the grand mufti of Jerusalem to pay their condolences.

The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the killing as “despicable” and urged both sides “not to take the law into their own hands”.

One of the families of the three murdered Israeli teens described it as a “horrendous act”.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas demanded that Mr Netanyahu act against revenge attacks and called for Abu Khdeir’s killers to be caught and punished.

Four Israeli soldiers who allegedly used social media to call for revenge and to “annihilate terrorists” were jailed for 10 days by the military.

But the Islamist Hamas movement, whom Israel has blamed for the kidnap and murder of the three teenagers in June, said it held Mr Netanyahu’s government directly responsible for the killing of Abu Khder.

“You will pay the price for your crimes,” it said.

Gaza militants fired 20 rockets at southern Israel on Wednesday, one of which hit a house in Sderot, the army said. No one was injured.

The army said another 16 rockets had hit the Israeli south since midnight on Wednesday, one of which struck a second house in Sderot.

Overnight, the Israeli air force staged 15 strikes on "Hamas targets", among them concealed rocket launchers, weapons storage facilities and militant activity sites, a statement said.

Palestinian medics said 11 people were wounded, one of them seriously.

In Jerusalem, police threw up a security cordon around Shuafat, fearing more violence after the results of the autopsy on Abu Khder, which were expected later on Thursday.

An Israeli military spokesman said security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian president Mr Abbas’s forces in the West Bank was continuing in order to “limit points of friction” ahead of the first Friday of Ramadan, which is expected to be tense because of the developments.

Thousands of Palestinians normally enter Jerusalem to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press