Monument to murdered teen vandalized

again
Renewed
reports
of attacks on Arabs inJ'lem,
gangs chanting
'Death to Arabs' in streets
Nir Hasson Nir Hasson
For the second time in
week, monument to the mur-
dered East Jerusalem teen-
ager
Mohammed Abu Khdeir
has been vandalized.
The monument, at the site
where the
16-year-old's body
was found in the Jerusalem
Forest on
July
,2 was builtlast
Tuesday by
several dozen
residents of Beit
Zayit
and
Jerusalemites, who
spontane-
ouslyorganized
the memo-
rial.
They
held service at
the site,built the monument
from
surrounding
rocks and
placed
flower
garlands
on it
in
memory
of the murdered
Shoafat
youth
The memorial was built
over the charred
piece
of
land on which Abu Khdeir was
burned alive
by
his murder-
ers. Three
people
have been
detained on
suspicion
of kill-
ing
the
boy
for nationalistic
motives.
The memorial was
initially
vandalized
by
unknown as-
sailants the same
day
itwas
built.
"Somebody
used no
small amount of
strength
to
destroy
it,"said Yoav Laff,
one of the monument's initia-
tors. Two
days
later,members
of the Hoar HaOved VeHa-
lomed and Dror Israel
youth
movements rebuilt the site
and held another short ser-
vice in Abu Khdeir 's
memory
From visitto the site
yes-
terday,
it
appears
that some-
body
has
again
vandalized
the monument, removed some
of the rocks that form itand
scattered the flower
garlands.
Meanwhile, there are re-
newed
reports
of attacks
on Arabs, and
politically
in-
spired
attacks in Jerusalem.
On
Thursday,
an Arab bus
driver was attacked in the
city,
and
yesterday politi-
callyinspiredfight
broke out
between Jews one of whom
said there are some innocent
Arabs and was then hit
by
bottleand
hospitalized.
Other witnesses
report
that
groups
of
right-wing
ac-
tivistsand
teenagers
continue
to roam the
city
center shout-
ing
"Death to the Arabs,"
looking
for Arabs to assault.
Left-wing organizations
inthe
capital
have
organized
sever-
al teams whose aim isto
pro-
tect Palestinian
passersby.
Attorney
Avner Pinchuk
has written to
Attorney
Gen-
eral Yehuda Weinstein, de-
manding
that he instructs the
police
to counter the
problem.
"We finditdifficultto
imagine
situationin which
group
of
Arab ruffians roamed
city
in which Jews live and work,
shouting
'Death to the
Jews/
and the
police
offers them an
escort as
long
as
they
don't
physically
attack Jews," Pin-
chuk wrote