DHAKA: Dozens of people have been injured in the largest clashes in occupied East Jerusalem in years, as Palestinians fought with police after the mutilated body of a boy was found dumped in a forest outside the city.

The body may belong to Mohammed Abu Khdair, a 17-year-old from the Shuafat neighbourhood, who was abducted on Wednesday morning.

Police say they are investigating whether the murder was a revenge attack, carried out after three kidnapped Israeli settlers were found dead earlier this week in the occupied West Bank.

A police spokesman said Abu Khdair was reported missing early on Wednesday. Witnesses said that he was abducted around 3.45am and thrown into a car by two or three men as he was walking to the mosque.

“I heard screaming outside, ‘Mohammed has been kidnapped’,” said Abu Moussa Abu Khdair, a cousin who was in the mosque at the time.

“When I ran outside he was gone, and the youth (outside the mosque) said he was taken in a car.”

By nightfall, though, the body was still unidentified. DNA samples have been taken as the body was too badly burned to be recognized.

Relatives said his father spent most of the day in a police station.

BDST: 12523 HRS, JULY 3, 2014