JERUSALEM, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli military court convicted on Wednesday a Palestinian youth on charges of murdering three people in a West Bank settlement in July.
The Ofer Military Court found 19-year-old Omar al-Abed guilty of murdering Yosef Salomon, his daughter Chaya and his son Elad in a knife attack in their home in the settlement of Halamish.
He was convicted of three counts of murder, in addition to attempted murder, incitement and stone-throwing.
Al-Abed, a resident of the village of Kobar in the central West Bank, said he carried out the attack "for Al-Aqsa," a mosque and a major holy Muslim compound in East Jerusalem, which was at the center of a Palestinian uprising after Israel installed new metal detectors at the entrance to it.
The Military General Attorney asked the court to punish al-Abed with four life terms, one for each murder and a fourth for the rest of the offenses.
The family of the victims told local media that they demand death penalty for al-Abed.
The Israeli military law allows death sentence but this count has never been used.
Israeli politicians, predominantly hawkish Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, have been urging the enactment of the death sentence against Palestinian attackers.
