Two Israeli teens get jail terms for Palestinian youth's murder

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — An Israeli court jailed two Jewish teenagers on Thursday, one for life and the other for 21 years, over a revenge murder of a Palestinian teenager in Jerusalem that helped trigger Israel’s 2014 onslaught on Gaza.

The two defendants, whose names were withheld from publication because of their age, and an adult ringleader were found guilty in November of the abduction, bludgeoning, strangling and burning of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair.

Prosecutors said all of the accused had confessed, calling the July 2, 2014 murder revenge for the killing days earlier of three Israeli settlers by Hamas in the occupied West Bank.

The incidents raised tensions, and a seven-week Israeli aggression against the Hamas-run Gaza Strip began on July 8, 2014.

The defendants sentenced on Thursday were minors, aged 17 and 16, when they killed Abu Khudair. The older of the two teens received the life term.

The adult defendant in the Abu Khudair case, Yosef Haim Ben David, lodged an insanity plea that has held up his formal conviction and sentencing. A court review of Ben-David's psychological competence is scheduled for next week.

Abu Khudair's father, Hussein, told reporters at Jerusalem district court that the family would appeal to the supreme court to give the youngest defendant a life prison term as well.

"If there is no apartheid or racism [in Israel], you will have to do this," Abu Khudair said, accusing authorities of going easy on the defendant because he is a Jew rather an Arab.

The state had sought life prison terms for both underaged defendants, but voiced satisfaction with Thursday's sentencing.