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Suha and Hussein Abu Khdeir, parents of murdered Palestinian teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir, ahead of the one-year anniversary of the death of their son.(Photo: Kate Shuttleworth)
JERUSALEM — In an otherwise joyful high school graduation portrait, a grieving Suha Abu Khdeir stands out.
In the picture, the students around Abu Khdeir are draped in black gowns and caps and smile proudly, but the Palestinian mother, 41, is crying because her son should have been part of the class.
A year ago Thursday, her 16-year-old son, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was abducted from outside a mosque in east Jerusalem and burned alive. It was a revenge killing prompted by the deaths of three kidnapped Israeli teens. Both events in part triggered the 50-day war last summer between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
"Just weeks ago I was invited to the graduation of Mohammed's class. Here was his seat," she said, pointing to the picture. "Mohammed was not there. Everyone was happy but me. I was crying."
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Abu Khdeir now wishes she hadn't gone to the graduation, because the memory of her son's violent death is still too raw.
In another photo, the class is in their seats, but one front-row chair is empty, draped in white satin and holding a large photo of Mohammed.
"Mohammed really wanted to finish his studies," his mother said. "I can't believe it's almost a year since my son died. I still feel like it happened yesterday. Everything went so fast."
Palestinians carry the body of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir in Jerusalem on Friday, July 4, 2014.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Mahmoud Illean, AP)
She said that even before Ramadan started this year, "a bad feeling was welling inside me. When they kidnapped him, they took my life. ... I couldn't eat food during the first day of breaking the fast. I just looked at it."
Her husband, Hussein, agreed. "Ramadan doesn't have the same taste for us now," he said.
During the past year, Abu Khdeir and her husband have sat through the trial of the three Israeli Jews charged with their son's death — Yosef Ben-David, 30, and two teenagers who cannot be named because they are minors. Ben-David is pleading insanity, and his lawyer said he is not fit to take the stand.
Israeli soldiers walk past a memorial stone in Hebrew bearing the name of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian teenager from East Jerusalem who was kidnapped and murdered last summer.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Menahem Kahana, AFP/Getty Images)
Abu Khdeir and her husband said that even if the three are convicted by the judge, they won't be given a harsh enough sentence.
"I don't trust the Israeli court. I don't believe they are going to give us our right. Even if they will sentence them, maybe they will release them after a few years," Suha Abu Khdeir said.
"I place the responsibility on the Israeli government for the burning of my son," Hussein Abu Khdeir added. He was referring to the massive manhunt for the three Israeli teens abducted in the West Bank on June 12, 2014, and later found dead. "The incitement at the time encouraged these people," he said.
Ben-David, a resident of the West Bank settlement Adam, admitted last year that he was responsible for setting Mohammed on fire.
"When my son was found in the forest, I was taken by the police for investigation before they arrested the accused," Hussein Abu Khdeir said. "I told four Israeli police heads that they (the suspects' lawyers) will tell you that the accused are mentally sick. At the time they laughed at me. I predicted what would happen."
The two underage teens told the court June 3 that Ben-David had pressured them into carrying out a hate crime in retaliation for the deaths of the abducted Israeli teens.
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Hussein Abu Khdeir said his family has no idea how long the trial will last.
"If the opposite happened and a Jew killed an Arab and burned him alive, it would only take two sessions in the court and then they would be sentenced. The second day they would have already destroyed his house," he said.
Mohammed's family is eligible to apply for compensation through the court for their son's death and could qualify for up to $1 million, but they have refused.
"All the money in the whole world could not bring back my son," Suha Abu Khdeir said.
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