Tariq Khdeir, teen boy beaten in Israel, linked to Florida, murdered Palestinian from forest
The Palestinian youth who was caught on video beaten by members of the Israeli Border Police is a United States citizen from Florida, according to Orlando’s WESH.
The teen is Tariq Khdeir, 15, a cousin of Muhammed Abu Khdeir, the 16-year-old Palestinian whose burned body was found Wednesday in the Jerusalem Forest.
Khdeir, according to the station, is a high school sophomore in Tampa, who was visiting his Palestinian relatives in Shuafat, Jerusalem, for the first time in over a decade when he was beaten and detained.
The incident took place on Thursday outside the home of the murdered teenager, said to be his cousin. The Forward quoted the Council on American-Islamic Relations as saying that he suffered serious injuries in the beating and is being held under police guard at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.
“It’s so hard just thinking about this; I’m dried out of tears i can’t even cry anymore,” Tariq Khdeir’s aunt told Bay News 9. “He’s got a broken jaw. He’s only 15. … He has a broken nose, swollen-shut eyes, two black eyes and a swollen head.”
Two videos of the incident were posted online. One was shot by a neighbor and distributed to family and a television station, while the other was shot from the other side of the street and posted to YouTube.
Both show three Border Police officers hitting a Palestinian detainee who is cuffed and lying on the floor. One of the officers appears to be sitting on the youth while his colleague is kicking and punching him. One of the videos shows the officers dragging what appears to be an unconscious detainee away.
The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the reports of Khdeir’s detention, but it could comment due to privacy considerations, the radio station reported.
People please, don’t blame religion for this idiotic violent behavior that began before 1920. Zionism was a well meant social, political and territorial one sided dream that has not gone well for the other established occupants of the same contested land. Equal and natural coexistence (not Jewish state) is now the only answer to this social experiment gone wrong. I truly wish peace, justice and prosperity to these people who share such long parallel history.