Police and Palestinian youths have clashed in East Jerusalem after the body of a Palestinian teenager was found in the city, prompting a police investigation into a possible link to the murder of three Israeli settlers.
An Al Jazeera journalist at the scene in Shufat, a Palestinian neighbourhood, on Wednesday reported seeing at least two Palestinians hit by rubber bullets during the pitched battles described by residents as the largest clashes in East Jerusalem in years.
Other sources said dozens of people had been injured and that three Palestinian journalists had been struck by rubber bullets.
Police have also been using stun grenades.
“From 7am the army has tried to block off this neighbourhood. … they forced me and my employees to leave … . I think they are taking revenge for what happened [the dead settlers],” said Akram al-Salameh, the owner of a bakery nearby who was wounded.
Jerusalem has been tense since the bodies of the young Israeli settlers were found, and the police have reinforced their presence in Palestinian neighbourhoods.
Call to police
Israeli police told Al Jazeera that they received a call early on Wednesday about an alleged kidnapping in Shuafat.
They said they had not established a link between the alleged kidnapping and the body, which was found in a Jerusalem forest.
Local media have identified the missing youth as 17-year-old Mohammed Hasan Abu Khdair.
A cousin of Abu Khdair, who witnessed the abduction, said he was pushed into a car with two or three people in it outside the mosque in Shuafat.
“I was inside the mosque this morning at around 3.45. I heard screaming outside: ‘Mohammed has been kidnapped.’ When I ran outside he was gone, and the youth [outside] said he was taken in a car,” Abu Moussa Abu Khdair said.
The missing boy’s father has been at the police station all day, waiting for forensic tests to identify the body.
Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported that the body was “charred, and showed signs of violence”.
Weeks-long manhunt
The Palestinian’s body was discovered just hours after Israel buried the three young settlers, whose bodies were found in a valley outside Hebron earlier this week.
They disappeared on June 12 while hitch-hiking home from a religious seminary in the occupied West Bank, setting off a weeks-long manhunt.
Nearly 50 people were arrested at right-wing demonstrations on Tuesday, during which protesters chanted “death to the Arabs” and tried to assault Palestinians.
The police said one man was jailed overnight for attacking a Palestinian worker in a fast-food restaurant in the city, and two other assaults were reported on Tuesday.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, condemned the act as “a despicable murder” and urged all sides not to take the law into their own hands.
Nir Barkat, the mayor of Jerusalem, also “vigorously condemn[ed] the barbaric murder”.
East Jerusalem clashes follow teen's murder
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