Clashes break out during Palestinian funeral

JERUSALEM: Israeli police clashed with rock-throwing Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem on Friday as thousands mourned at the funeral for an Arab teen who Palestinians say was killed by Israeli extremists in a revenge attack.
Tensions were also high along Israel’s southern border as Palestinians fired rockets and mortars from the Gaza Strip into Israel. And the Israeli military said its troops opened fire after spotting two Palestinians planting explosives near the border fence.
But after days of retaliatory airstrikes, the Israeli military did not immediately respond to the rocket attacks, in what appeared to be an attempt to allow an unofficial truce to take hold.
An ambulance carried the body of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, wrapped in a Palestinian flag and traditional headscarf, to a mosque in the east Jerusalem neighborhood where he lived. Then mourners carried the open casket through the crowd to a cemetery.
During the procession, scores of masked Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli police on duty nearby, and they responded with stun grenades, spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. He said more than 2,000 people attended the funeral.
Rosenfeld said police also clashed with hundreds of Palestinian protesters in other neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city, which has been rocked by violence since Abu Khdeir’s burned body was found Wednesday in a forest after he was seized near his home.