A court sentenced two young Israelis to life and 21 years in prison Thursday for burning a Palestinian teen alive, part of a cycle of violence that led up to the 2014 Gaza war.
According to AFP, the two Israelis were minors at the time of the chilling attack in which they and a third man, (pictured above) snatched Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, from an east Jerusalem street and subsequently killed him.
Yosef Haim Ben-David, 31, is said to have led the attack on Abu Khdeir but his lawyers say he suffers from a mental illness and was not responsible for his actions at the time. The court has found that he committed the crime but is yet to rule if he is mentally competent.
The two others were 16 when they killed Abu Khdeir in 2014 but are now 18.
The court, which has not identified them because they were minors at the time, noted they were from ultra-Orthodox Jewish families.
Abu Khdeir’s mother, Suha, screamed and cried when the sentences were announced in the small, packed courtroom. Both she and her husband Hussein criticised the decision to sentence one of the defendants to 21 years.
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