An Israeli settler attempted to kidnap an 18-month-old Palestinian toddler in the Jabal al-Mukkabir neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Thursday, witnesses said.

The child was reportedly the son of Ghassan Abu Jamal, one of the attackers who killed five Israelis in an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue last November.

Abu Jamal’s brother said the child, Muhammad, was walking with his uncles when he wandered some five meters ahead of the group.

A female settler then exited a car and grabbed him, running with the child for some 20 meters before relatives caught up and freed the boy.

She released the boy and fled the scene in her car.

Witnesses say she shouted: “Arabs, Arabs, they want to kill me” during the incident.

On Wednesday, two Palestinian schoolboys, Mousa Zallum, 7, and his brother Yahya, 8, took part in a court case to identify the men who kidnapped and killed Muhammad Abu Khdeir last July.

Mousa told Israeli rights group B’Tselem last summer that two of the suspects accused of killing Abu Khdeir had tried to kidnap him a day earlier.

(Ma’an – www.maannews.net)