Was a 16 year old Palestinian teenager who's body was found partially burned.
But he was also a person and that seems to be forgotten in the political frenzy of blame.
Sadly, while the 3 Israeli boys who's were kidnapped and murdered have been mourned and prayed over - this boy seems to be overlooked. Instead, conspiracy theories abound - he was killed because he was homosexual...he is thin, must have had AIDS. Two different kidnappings and murders, and two different treatments.
Palestinian Teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir Mourned In Tense Jerusalem Funeral
Mr Abu Khdeir accused police of asking him "ridiculous things" about his son. "They asked how much his pocket money was, who were his friends, did he have any enemies, if somebody hated him," he said. "They even asked if he had been kidnapped before. They didn't bring up the subject of him being kidnapped by settlers and when I raised it, they said, why are you saying that. It's clear they wanted to put a lid on it."
In the hours after his death, rumours appeared on Twitter that Mohammed had been killed by fellow Palestinians as part of a criminal gang feud or by his own relatives in a so-called honour killing amid unsubstantiated suggestions that he was gay. His family have dismissed such assertions out of hand and insist that he had no criminal connections or history of being in trouble.
Really sad, especially when compared to the more respectful tone given to the murdered Israeli boys.
Why?
So who was he?
He was 16 years old. He wasn't some political pawn. He would have been like any teen - full of himself yet uncertain, cocky yet hesitant, full of life dreams an promises and ready to be independent yet not.
16, 17, 18, 19 - those are the years and times when people dream big but have little sense of their own mortality or how dangerous the world might be outside.
3 Israeli Jewish teens, 1 Palestinian teens who might have more in common with each other than they ever would have realized.
Family of slain Palestinian teen lives in Sacramento | News - KCRA Home
"The message from our community is clear, and also the Jewish community is clear -- that no children should suffer this conflict," said Basim Elkarra, of the Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"(He was) a 16-year-old kid, 90 pounds wet. I got a picture of me doing curls with him," Khdair said. "How's he going to defend himself? It had nothing to do with him."
The situation unfolded the day after funerals were held for the three young Israelis.
Their bodies were found Monday buried in a field in the West Bank.
His family said Khdeir was at the mosque near their home for a meal before sunrise, prior to a day of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. That's when relatives said men pulled up asking for directions, quickly grabbed the teen and drove away.
The family said he was tortured.
"He was beaten and then stabbed and then lit on fire," Abu Khdair said. "He must have been so scared."
Dead Palestinian boy?s Sacramento relatives speak - SFGate Blog
“He loved to tell jokes and riddles; he was never serious. In all the pictures we have of him he was making a goofy face,” Wadha Abukhdeir, the boy’s first cousin, told the Sacramento Bee.
. *It also notes that the IDF has been enlisted to take part in the pursuit of the killers. *Involvement of the IDF in the crime implies the search has entered the West Bank (the military would not be involved in solving a crime within the Green Line) and that the terrorists are being harbored in a radical West Bank settlement. *I said from the beginning they’d be found in Yitzhar or a place like it."
