Video of wedding guests celebrating murder of toddler shocks Israel

A video of Orthodox Jewish wedding guests celebrating the killing of a Palestinian toddler has brought fierce condemnation from Israel prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The footage depicts Israeli youths dancing with guns and knives during a wedding party in Jerusalem. One masked youth is seen raising a firebomb, while another repeatedly stabs a photo of Ali Dawabsheh, an 18-month-old Palestinian toddler who was killed in an arson attack carried out by Israeli settlers in July. Mr Netanyahu, who leads the ultra-nationalist Likud party, said the shocking pictures showed “the real face of a group that poses danger to Israeli society and security”.

Those kids were literally awash with hatred. I’ve attended these kinds of weddings for several years, and those songs repeat themselves – but the weapons and the punctured photograph of the toddler Ali Dawabshe were a real crossing of a red line.

One wedding guest

The guests appear to be celebrating an attack in which settlers a family home in the occupied West Bank village of Duma, killing Ali and his parents, Saad and Reham. The couple’s four-year-old son, who was severely burned, was the only survivor of the attack. The wedding was said to be of well-known extremists who are friends of those who have been arrested for the murders. An hour before the wedding took place, lawyers representing the murder suspects held a press conference in the same function hall. The video is certain to inflame tensions in the West Bank, which has seen dozens of tit-for-tat attacks between Israelis and Palestinian; on Thursday, Israeli forces killed three Palestinian assailants in separate incidents.

You miserable people, you’ve forgotten what it is to be Jews. You disgrace your skullcap, your prayer shawl and the name of God

Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog

Middle East dawabsheh wedding