Two 17-year-old Israelis have been convicted of the murder of the Palestinian youth Mohammad Abu Khdair, abducted and burned to death in Jerusalem in 2014.
The verdict on the third suspect, a 31-year-old Israeli man, was postponed for a mental health review.
Mohammad Abu Khdair, 16, was killed in what appears to be a revenge for the murders of three Israeli teens in the West Bank. The killings of the Israelis set off an escalating cycle of violence, leading to a war between Israel and militants in Gaza.
Mohammad Abu Khdair’s body was found in a forest in West Jerusalem on 2 July 2014, two days after the bodies of three Israeli teenagers abducted and murdered by Hamas militants were found in the West Bank.
Israeli prosecutors said the two unnamed minors and 31-year-old Yosef Haim Ben David admitted during questioning to beating Abu Khdair unconscious and then burning him to death using petrol poured on the teenager while he was still alive.
The panel of three judges found the minors guilty of the murder and it also said there was enough evidence to convict Mr Ben David, but that the verdict would be postponed until a psychiatric evaluation had been carried out.
Two Palestinians suspected of the murder of the three Israeli teenagers – Naftali Fraenkel and Gilad Shaar, both aged 16, and 19-year-old Eyal Yifrach – were killed by Israeli forces in a gun-battle at their hideout in Hebron in September 2014. A third man,
Hussam Qawasmeh, was sentenced to three life terms in prison in January after being found guilty by an Israeli court of several charges including three counts of accessory to murder.
