Man jailed over Ramallah lynching

Graphic television pictures were shown around the world

A Palestinian man who waved blood-stained hands at a cheering mob has been jailed for life for killing an Israeli soldier four years ago.

An Israeli court convicted Aziz Salha for the murder of Cpl Vadim Norzich, one of two soldiers killed in a lynching in a Ramallah police station.

The two were said to have taken a wrong turn and ended up in the West Bank town where they were set upon by a crowd.

The killings took place in the first weeks of the Palestinian intifada.

The army said Cpl Norzich and fellow reservist Yossi Avrahami had been on their way to their army base in the West Bank in October 2000, but after they took a wrong turn they were taken to a police station in Ramallah.

Salha was part of the Palestinian crowd which surged into the police station and attacked the soldiers.

Television footage showed the crowd throwing the bodies out of a window and beating them with iron bars.

Salha was seen standing in an upstairs window waving his bloody hands at the crowd.

More than 900 Israelis and more than 3,500 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.