JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Mohammed Abu Khadir, a slightly-built youth with piercing brown eyes, loved Arab folk dancing. Naftali Fraenkel, a strapping, red-haired youngster, strummed Hebrew folk music on his guitar.
But the Palestinian and the Israeli, both dead at 16, were sons of a land without harmony and now seem to have been doomed to share in the tragedy of yet more young lives cut short in a decades-old conflict...
..."My son was always nice to people, always smiling," Mohammed's mother, Suha, told reporters at the family home in Shuafat, an Arab neighbourhood of Jerusalem.
Mohammed, who was laid to rest on Friday, studied electronics at vocational school, and collected all of the latest gadgets. He had a passion for music and belonged to a dance troupe popular for performing the Debka folk dance.
"He was a calm boy, he hated trouble and problems," said Saeed Abu Khudair, a cousin who runs a fast-food restaurant in Jerusalem. "I can't believe I'm using the word 'was'."
Naftali, who lived in Nof Ayalon, a village in Israel about a 30-minute drive from Mohammed's home, went to school in a West Bank settlement. On breaks from his religious studies, he played basketball and ping-pong, friends said...
...Naftali, a dual U.S.-Israeli national, also enjoyed singing Hebrew folk songs, accompanying himself on the guitar, and played the flute - showing a love for music that his mother, Rachel, remembered in her eulogy at Naftali's funeral...