Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli police made dozens of arrests overnight as violent protests over the murder of a Palestinian teenager by suspected Jewish extremists swept Arab Israeli towns into Sunday.

The military meanwhile carried out 10 air strikes on Gaza in response to persistent rocket fire into southern Israel as hopes faded of a renewed truce with its Islamist foe Hamas.

Violence which rocked annexed Arab east Jerusalem for four straight days after the kidnap and murder of the Palestinian teenager on Wednesday, spread to half a dozen Arab towns in Israel on Saturday.

The initial results of a post-mortem found that the 16-year-old was likely burned alive in what many Palestinians believe was a revenge killing by Jewish extremists after the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank last month.

"Around 35 people were arrested overnight, almost half of them minors," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.

Of those, 22 were arrested in and around the northern city of Nazareth, the most populous Arab town in Israel.

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The mother of Tariq Abu Khder, a 15-year-old cousin of murdered Palestinian youth Mohammed, shows a …

The rest were arrested in Taibe in the north and the Triangle region around Umm el Fahm, an Islamist stronghold northeast of Tel Aviv, where clashes continued into Sunday, Samri added.

"We are demonstrating against this incitement to hatred by Israelis online, who are saying 'death to Arabs'," one demonstrator in the Triangle town of Qalansuwa told army radio.

Israel police confirmed they had opened an internal investigation into allegations of police brutality following the publication of a video showing border police beating a handcuffed detainee.

The video was released as news emerged that a 15-year-old Palestinian with US citizenship had been badly beaten while in police custody in east Jerusalem, triggering condemnation from the US State Department.

He was due to appear in court on Sunday morning.

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Stone throwers, protesting against the murder of a Palestinian teenager, gather on July 6, 2014 in t …

- Rockets on Beersheva -

The latest round of violence began on June 12 with the kidnap and subsequent murder of three Israeli teenagers in an attack Israel blamed on Hamas.

The kidnapping triggered a major army crackdown on the West Bank, with more than 400 Palestinians arrested, two-thirds of them Hamas members, and six people killed in clashes sparked by the arrests.

Two days after their bodies were found, a Palestinian of similar age from east Jerusalem was kidnapped and killed, sparking clashes which on Saturday spread to Israeli Arab towns.

Tensions have also been high in and around Gaza, where Hamas has its stronghold, with militants responding to the West Bank crackdown with rocket fire on southern Israel.

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Israeli riot police secure a street during clashes with Palestinian protesters (unseen) in the Arab …

The air force has hit back with almost nightly strikes, which have killed three Palestinian militants so far.

On Saturday, militants fired 15 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel, two of which targeted the southern city of Beersheva some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Palestinian territory, police said.

It was the first time the city had been targeted since the army's last major operation in Gaza, named Pillar of Defence, in November 2012.

The air force responded with new strikes early on Sunday, none of which caused casualties.

"Following constant rocket fire at Israeli communities in the south, IAF (Israel Air Force) aircraft targeted 10 terror sites in the central and southern Gaza Strip, including concealed rocket launchers and a weapon manufacturing facility," a statement said.

Also on Sunday, the army said it had arrested a Palestinian in the flashpoint southern West Bank city of Hebron, whom the Israeli media suggested was somehow linked to the kidnap and murder of the three teenagers.

Israel has named two Hamas militants from Hebron as the prime suspects -- Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Eishe. Both remain at large.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would act calmly and responsibly in the face of rising Israeli-Palestinian hostilities, just hours after Israel's military carried out airstrikes on 10 sites in the Gaza Strip.

His statement came after weekend clashes between Israeli police and demonstrators in Jerusalem and Arab towns in northern Israel following the killing of a Palestinian youth. Also Sunday, an American teenager detained during violent protests in east Jerusalem was being brought before a court.

"Experience proves that in moments like these, one must act calmly and responsibly, not hysterically and hastily," Netanyahu said at the opening of his weekly Cabinet meeting.

The Israeli airstrikes targeted what the army said were militant sites including rocket launchers and a weapons manufacturing site, following at least 29 other rockets and mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel over the weekend.

Two of those rockets were aimed at Beersheba, a southern city deeper into Israel than any other attack in the current round of violence. The military said its "Iron Dome" defense system intercepted the two rockets.

Tensions have been high since three Israeli teens were abducted on June 12, setting off a massive Israeli ground operation in search of the youths, whose bodies were discovered early last week. The Israelis blamed Hamas for their killings and launched a major crackdown against the Islamic militant group.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting in his office in Jerusal …

Two days later, Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir was seized from his home in east Jerusalem and his burned body was found in a forest. Police say they are still investigating the killing, but Palestinians say Israeli extremists killed the teenager to avenge the deaths of the three Israelis.

Protests spread over the weekend from Jerusalem to Arab towns in northern Israel, with hundreds of people throwing rocks and fire bombs at officers who responded with tear gas and stun grenades, according to Israeli police. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said 22 Arab Israelis were arrested in clashes on Saturday.

Israeli Arabs, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, hold citizenship rights. But they often face discrimination and many identify with the Palestinians. Even so, violent riots like those that occurred on Saturday are rare.

Clashes mostly subsided by early Sunday, but the situation remained tense. Samri said a Jewish woman was attacked and lightly wounded early Sunday by a group of Palestinians in Jerusalem's Old City. Her husband fired his weapon and the attackers fled, and police were searching for them, Samri said.

Also Sunday, police asked a Jerusalem court to extend the detention of 15-year-old U.S. citizen Tariq Abu Khdeir.

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Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Ya'alon, left, and other ministers attend the weekly cabinet mee …

His parents say their son, who goes to school in Florida, was beaten Thursday by Israeli police during clashes over the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir. The two youths were cousins.

Tariq's parents, Suha and Salah, said Tariq was the last person with Mohammed shortly before he was seized. They said Tariq left Mohammed to eat before the Ramadan fast began at dawn Wednesday, and Mohammed was seized shortly afterward.

Police said Tariq Abu Khdeir resisted arrest, attacked officers, and was captured with a slingshot for lobbing stones.

Abu Khdeir's face was masked in a keffiyeh, an Arab headscarf that some Palestinian protesters wore during the clashes to conceal their identity, police added. He was detained along with six other protesters, police said, including some armed with knives, adding that several officers were hurt in that specific protest, one of many that day.

Amateur video of what Tariq's father Salah said was the beating aired on a local television station, and he said he could recognize his son from his clothing.

The U.S. State Department said it was "profoundly troubled" by reports of his beating and demanded an investigation. Israel's Justice Ministry quickly launched a formal investigation.

In the West Bank, the army arrested a Palestinian in the city of Hebron. His family identified him as Hossam Dufesh. The army would not elaborate on the arrest, but Israeli forces have concentrated its search for the killers of three Israeli teens in the Hebron area.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has arrested Jewish suspects in the abduction and killing of a Palestinian teen whose death touched off violent protests in Jerusalem and in Israeli Arab towns, a security source said on Sunday.

Six suspects were in custody, the source said, but added the number may change as the investigation into the killing of Mohammed Abu Khudair, 16, progressed.

The source gave no other details about the suspects other than to say they were Jews. There was no official comment from the police.

Investigators believe Mohammed Abu Khudair was slain out of "nationalist motives", the source said, in comments that appeared to confirm Palestinian suspicions that far-right Jews were involved and that his death was a vengeance killing.

Abu Khudair's burnt body was discovered in a Jerusalem forest on Wednesday, a day after the burial of three Jewish teens who were abducted while hitchhiking in the occupied West Bank on June 12.

Their bodies were found on Monday, near the road where they had gone missing, and Israel blames Hamas militants for their kidnapping and killing. The Islamist group has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

Palestinians have clashed with Israeli police in Jerusalem over the past several days. The violence spread on Saturday to Arab towns and villages in central and northern Israel.

The areas were largely quiet on Sunday, but police remained on high alert.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller Editing by Ori Lewis and Mark Potter)

Israel: Arrests in killing of Palestinian boy

Six Jewish suspects are in custody in connection with the murder of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair.
'Nationalistic' motives

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Twenty-two people were killed in overnight attacks by gunmen on the Kenyan coast, the Kenya Red Cross said Sunday. Al-Qaida-linked militants claimed responsibility but Kenyan officials blamed local separatists.

The Saturday night attacks left 13 dead in the town of Hindi and nine dead and one person missing in the town of Gamba, in neighboring Lamu and Tana Delta counties, Kenya Red Cross chief Abbas Gulet said.

Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants from Somalia claimed responsibility for Saturday's attacks — just like they did for others last month that killed 65 people. Kenya police, however, said preliminary investigations pointed to a Kenyan separatist group on the coast.

The attacks come as tensions are rising over a planned protest rally Monday in Nairobi by the opposition, which wants the government to convene national talks over security issues, the increasing cost of living, corruption and the disbandment of the electoral authority. Many fear the protests could further divide the nation along tribal lines.

About 15 gunmen raided the town of Hindi and started shooting at residents, according to the Lamu county commissioner Njenga Miiri. The assailants allegedly burned several buildings, including a church, and also attacked the Gamba police station, Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo said.

The victims in Gamba included five non-Muslim inmates killed when the gunmen attacked the police station, said a senior police officer who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak with the media. Three other inmates escaped with the gunmen, according to the officer.

Grace Kaindi, a deputy inspector general of police, told reporters Sunday that preliminary investigations pointed to the separatist group Mombasa Republican Council. She showed a message allegedly left by the attackers on a blackboard at a school that called on Muslims to rise up, take back their land and kick out Christians from the coast. The message also suggested the attackers support opposition leader and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Kenya has witnessed a notable increase in attacks since deploying troops in Oct. 2011 to fight al-Shabab militants.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for a deadly attack last month on the town of Mpeketoni on the Kenyan coast and another attack the following day on a nearby village. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and the interior minister have blamed local political networks for those attacks — assertions that have been met with skepticism.

Last month, police arrested Lamu Governor Issa Timamy and charged him with murder, forceful eviction of residents and terrorism in connection to the Mpeketoni attacks.

Kenyatta's claims that the Mpeketoni attack was "politically motivated" are seen as an indirect attack on Odinga, who lost to Kenyatta in last year's vote. The accusations have stoked tension between supporters of the two politicians, raising fears of violence.

Odinga has vowed to continue with the protest despite a court order barring him and other leaders from the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy from convening the rally. The government has said 15,000 police officers will be deployed at the rally to prevent violence.

From RT.com – July 5, 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/kyoxexn

A whistleblower who kicked off UK police pedophile probe Operation Fernbridge believes as many as 40 British MPs and peers were involved in or turned a blind eye to child abuse.

Peter Mckelvie, a retired child protection team manager, who has spent more than 20 years compiling evidence of alleged child abuse by people in authority, believes ten current and former politicians are on the list and that there is enough evidence to arrest at least one senior politician, reports the Daily Telegraph.

MPs and peers from all three main political parties are on the list including Cyril Smith and Sir Peter Morrison, who are now dead.

McKelvie was behind bringing Peter Righton, a notorious pedophile, to justice when he worked for Hereford and Worcester child protection team and believes that up to 20 MPs and Lords should be investigated.

“I believe there are sufficient grounds to carry out a formal investigation into allegations of up to 20 MPs and Lords over the last three decades, some still alive and some dead. The list is there,” he said.

And in a letter to his local MP Tony Baldry last month, McKelvie suggested that a further 20 may be implicated in covering up child abuse.

Cyril Smith is among the politicians on a list of names held by police investigating historic child abuse Photo: REX FEATURES

Although he does not suggest that any of the public servants either MPs or Lords colluded with each other.

It was Tom Watson MP who first raised the issue of child abuse by MPs and peers at Prime Minister’s Questions in October 2012 as a result of information that McKelvie had passed to him.

Watson spoke of “clear intelligence suggesting a powerful pedophile network linked to parliament and number 10.”

It was after Watson’s intervention that the Metropolitan Police began Operation Fernbridge, an ongoing investigation about alleged child abuse at the Elms Guest House in Barns, South London.

It is understood that a Tory MP abused a child under the age of 10 at the guesthouse in the 1980s, but the alleged victim has so far refused to give a sworn witness statement to police.

Earlier this week it emerged that a separate file on an alleged Westminster pedophile network, which had been put together by the now deceased MP Geofrey Dickens, mysteriously gone missing after he handed it to the then Home Secretary Lord Brittan in 1983.

Labor MP Simon Danczuk, along with six other MPs, has written to the Home Secretary Theresa May demanding a public inquiry into the missing dossier and the people who had been named in it.

Mrs May said she has not ruled out an inquiry after the police finish their investigations and Prime Minister Cameron also tried to give reassurance that the issue would not be swept under the carpet.

“I’ve asked the permanent secretary at the Home Office to do everything he can to find answers to all of these questions and to make sure we can reassure people about these events. Its right these investigations are made. We mustn’t do anything, of course, that could prejudice or prevent proper action by the police,” he said.

Separately it was reported Friday by the Telegraph that a senior Tory who is being investigated as part of Operation Fernbridge, was stopped by customs officials with child pornography in the 1980s but was never arrested.