Police in Israel have arrested at least six people in the abduction and grisly murder of a West Bank Palestinian teenager who was apparently set on fire while still alive.  The suspects have not been identified, but Israeli authorities said they had a “nationalist” motives.

The crime set off a wave of violent protests in Palestinian areas of Israel, where people believe that 16-year old Mohammed Abu Khdeir was killed by Israeli settlers in revenge for the abduction and murders of three Jewish teenagers earlier.  Their killer or killers are still on the loose.  Before the pot boiled over last week, the Israeli government blamed members of Hamas.

“We will not allow extremists, it doesn't matter from which side, to inflame the region and cause bloodshed,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  “Murder is murder, incitement is incitement, and we will respond aggressively to both.”

Police say the suspects are young men, some are still minors.  They were found by tracing the vehicle used by the kidnappers, who apparently tried abducting an even younger child a day earlier.  Israeli TV showed pictures of the nine-year-old boy with red marks around his neck.

Meanwhile, Mohammed’s American cousin – 15-year old Tariq Abu Khdeir, who was recorded being viciously assaulted by Israeli border guards – is out of jail.  A Jerusalem judge ordered him released on nine days house arrest.  Authorities said he was part of a gang of Palestinian kids throwing rocks.

“I was actually brutally attacked from the side.  I heard somebody screaming and he came and attacked me and I actually went unconscious, and I woke up in the hospital,” said the teen, his face still swollen from where the cops beat and stomped him.  “I was screaming, I was just screaming when they hit me.”

The family plans to leave the Holy Land and return to Florida on 16 July, assuming the investigation is over.  When they leave it behind them, Israelis and Palestinians are still fighting and killing each other for no damned reason.