7-Year-old kid identifies the extremist Jewish kidnapper

Seven-year-old East Jerusalem schoolboy Mousa Zallum, who survived a kidnapping attempt in July 2014, and his 8-year-old brother Yahya on Wednesday identified the alleged Jewish extremists who attempted to kidnap Mousa.

The two recognized by the Zallum boys are accused of kidnapping and murdering 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir from the same neighborhood only a day after they failed to kidnap Zallum while he was walking next to his mother Dina Zallum.

"I heard the sound of a car braking as it entered Shufat. Then I heard the voice of Mousa shouting for help and calling out to me," Dina told the Israeli human rights group Btselem on July 7. With the help of his mother and his screams, which alerted passersby, Zallum escaped and the attackers fled the scene.

The defense attorney asked the boys several questions focusing on small details in an attempt to find discrepancies in their testimonies, family members who attended the hearing told Ma'an. They said that in most of the details the boys gave similar information.

They both confirmed that the suspect assaulted Mousa and grabbed him by the throat before he tried to throw him into the car. Their mother then intervened by attacking the settler in the head and pulled Mousa back, the boys told the court.

Lawyer of the Abu Khdeir family Muhannad Jubara said that the defendants' lawyers tried "in vain" to mislead the boys by showing discrepancies between their testimony and what they told police investigators in July.

"Even if there is some discrepancy between what witnesses say in the initial investigation and what they say in the final investigation, that doesn't annul their testimony because of the time span between both," the lawyer added. The court, he said, has scheduled four more hearings in April and May.

For his part, the bereaved father of Muhammad Abu Khdeir said he felt "relaxed" after the hearing on Wednesday.

"For the first time, I exit the court hall relaxed and that is because the Zallum boys recognized two members of the gang who murdered my son Muhammad despite the attempts to practice pressure on them."

He added that he would submit an official request to Israeli authorities demanding that the house of the three extremist kidnappers and murderers be demolished.

"I demand that the murderers of Muhammad be sentenced to life imprisonment or burnt to death," the bereaved mother said after the hearing.

Abu Khdeir was killed in July 2014 in a suspected revenge attack for the murders of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank.

Three suspected Jewish extremists are facing trial in Jerusalem.