Another child dies as Rafah mourns

Sandra Jordan in Rafah
Sunday May 23, 2004
The Observer

Rawan Mohammed Abu Zaed, aged three and a half, went to the shop with two of her sisters to spend their pocket money on sweets.
Sick of being cooped up at home after a week of Israeli army attacks, the girls were taking advantage of a lull in the violence, but minutes after leaving home Rawan was shot in the face and neck by an Israeli tank.

Her dying words were: 'Mummy, Mummy'.

Three hours after her death yesterday, her father, Mohammed, placed Rawan's small body in a grave. All he had left of her was a photograph of a pretty elfin girl.

The 45-year-old father of 12 cried as he told of how Rawan used to run to him and how she loved to sleep in his arms. 'Her mother died giving birth,' he said, 'so I always try to compensate, and that's why we are so attached. I am both mum and dad to her. She's very intelligent, more like a 10-year-old than a three-year-old.'

According to the Palestinians, Rawan was the 11th child to be killed by the Israeli Defence Force since Operation Rainbow began last week. During the funeral, IDF planes circled the skies, giving the citizens of Rafah little hope for a let-up in the offensive that has killed at least 60 Palestinians so far.

The Israeli attacks began in response to the killing of seven soldiers here. The IDF claims it is targeting only militants and demolishing houses that conceal tunnels used to smuggle arms from Egypt. 'Does Rawan drive a tank?' asked Mohammed. 'Does she fire rockets?

There was none of the usual rhetoric common at the funerals of Palestinians killed by the IDF. There was just Mohammed, an unemployed labourer who used to work in Israel, saying quietly: 'Sharon is the first and last to blame.'

Rawan's uncle Abed trembled as he denounced her killers: 'She was an innocent child. And she deserved a gentle hand after losing her mother. Instead, she was killed by an Israeli hand with an American weapon.'

A stench of decaying flesh permeated the cemetery: half-filled mass graves remain open for shaheeds or martyrs. There were no gunmen firing over Rawan's tomb, and the crowd was smaller than the usual turnout of thousands to honour the death of an infant.

Instead, most of her neighbours were packing their belongings on donkey carts and fleeing the homes they fear will be destroyed during the next Israeli incursion.

Much of the area is without electricity or water and looks as if it has been hit by an earthquake: the roads have been ploughed up by tanks and whole streets of former houses are in ruins.

At least 3,000 people have been made homeless in the past week and thousands more, including Mohammed, expect to join their ranks over the weekend.

'I never expected my child to be a shaheed. Now I will make a prison for my other children at home and I won't let them ever leave the house.'

Last night I watched a Dutch TV program about a German Jihad fighter in prison in Israel (he is released recently), cannot believe the prisoners in the Prison have so good living condition and they are very free to express their views and there are Korans in the Cells.

""Last night I watched a Dutch TV program about a German Jihad fighter in prison in Israel (he is released recently), cannot believe the prisoners in the Prison have so good living condition and they are very free to express their views and there are Korans in the Cells.""



What's your point?
Any way, I highly doubt the Israelis treat their prisoners humanley, if these bastards are willing to shoot 3 year olds in the head, God only knows what else they are capable of doing.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=523979

It is totally inexcusable to shoot a child in the neck.  All snipers are supposed to work in teams of two, one with binoculars (to properly identify a target) and the other one firing.  And even sniper scopes from 400 metres are capable of distinguishing a 3 year old child from an adult.  And only a person with deliberate intentions to kill would shoot in the head/neck.  It seems quite clear that this sniper has lost his/her sense of humanity and is no longer capable of feeling remorse for murdering a child.

Do you really believe that this incident is done deliberately? I doubt. I don't believe Israeli's were trying to shoot down the girl.
It is mostly an accident, the girl was just too unlucky to be at that place.

Confirming the location of the bullets, Dr Ahmed abu Nkaira, the hospital's deputy director, said the wounds were consistent with shots fired from a range of between 300 and 400 metres.

I doubt a doctor can claim it is from 400 meters by just looking into the shape of wound. To find out the truth you need a throught research.

Rest in Peace, the girl.

I doubt a doctor can claim it is from 400 meters by just looking into the shape of wound. To find out the truth you need a throught research.

Sure you can!  You simply have to look at the flight vector, take into consideration the resistance factor of flesh, and muscle tissue and make a fairly simple calculation.  It's pretty simply physics.

god bless science, eh?

""Do you really believe that this incident is done deliberately? I doubt. I don't believe Israeli's were trying to shoot down the girl.
It is mostly an accident, the girl was just too unlucky to be at that place.

Confirming the location of the bullets, Dr Ahmed abu Nkaira, the hospital's deputy director, said the wounds were consistent with shots fired from a range of between 300 and 400 metres.

I doubt a doctor can claim it is from 400 meters by just looking into the shape of wound. To find out the truth you need a throught research.

Rest in Peace, the girl.""



Yes I believe they shot this baby delibertetly, I have no doubt about that, those worthles fvcks are know for that!


""I doubt a doctor can claim it is from 400 meters by just looking into the shape of wound. To find out the truth you need a throught research.""



Go to Med school before you make that claim!

Yes I believe they shot this baby delibertetly, I have no doubt about that, those worthles fvcks are know for that!

Sure you believe that but I don't believe that. The point is: Why should they kill a girl? It makes no sense.
Btw. I do NOT think Israeli's are evils, not at all. If you put Germany in that situation (Israel-Palestanie conflict), I doubt you can do Better. You will be simply left without better choice untill the Palestine Issue is completely solved by UN.


Go to Med school before you make that claim!

Well, I don't think POLIZEI as Doctor can be very sure about from what distance a bullet comes from by just looking at the wound. Ask yourself, can you do that? No.

But so what? Is that some kind of excuse? Sorry I killed a three year old boy, but it was an accident.

Israel is the strong power. Palestine is weak. It's up to the strong to make extra efforts to minimize civilian casualties and to take the higher road. What angers me about Sharon and his bunch is their only solution is to "Kill 10 of theirs for every one of ours!". That is ethical behavior? That is moral?

With respect to our Israeli friends here, that nation can no longer hide behind their right to survival. Israel is now militarily strong. Much stronger than all the Arab nations combined. Their survival has not been at risk for at least two decades. The conflict now is about illegal settlements in occupied territory. Thats why people continue to die over there. So Israelis can live in settlements on land they've stolen. Sorry, but there it is.

Thats why Israel's image has taken such a hit since 1973. They no longer have the moral high ground and a bunch of rock-throwing kids in the West Bank and Gaza have taken it over. Like the British in India the Israelis will have to leave the occupied territories-sooner or later. You can't keep shooting down people in the streets from tanks and attack helicopters and not have it impact the morale of your own people. It will destroy the morale fiber of Israel sooner or later.

Rising Toll Of Children
Shot Dead By Israeli Snipers
By Chris McGreal
The Guardian - UK
5-20-4

RAFAH -- The tiny hole buried under Asma Mughayar's thick black hair, just above her right ear, is an illusion, according to the Israeli army. So is her family's insistance that Asma, 16, and her younger brother Ahmed, were both shot through the head by an Israeli soldier as they fed their pigeons and collected the laundry from the roof of their home in Rafah refugee camp.

But their corpses tell a different story, as do the bodies of other children brought to Rafah's hospital and makeshift mortuaries even before yesterday's carnage, in which Israeli tanks and helicopters fired on a peaceful protest by Palestinians in the camp, killing 10 demonstrators, according to Palestinian paramedics.

Israel disputes the Mughayar family's account: that soldiers shot the children on Tuesday. Hours after their death, Israeli officials blamed the Palestinians, telling reporters that Asma and Ahmed had been killed in a "work accident" - a euphemism for bomb-makers blowing themselves up - or by Palestinian fighters who had left a landmine in the street.

"A preliminary investigation indicates they were killed by a bomb intended to be used against soldiers. It was set outside a building by Palestinians to hit an Israeli vehicle. This is probably what happened," a military spokesman said yesterday.

Dr Ali Moussa, head of Rafah hospital, is as furious at the claim as he is at Israel's assertion that almost all the 20 or more people killed during the army's seizure of the Tel al-Sultan district of the Rafah refugee camp were armed men.

"They are liars, liars, liars, because these children have bullet wounds to the head. There is no doubt about it," he says.

Dr Ahmed Abu Nkaria, who pronounced the Mughayar children dead, insists on proving the manner of their killing. He pulls Asma's body from the mortuary's refrigeration unit and fumbles through the teenager's hair to reveal the hole where the bullet entered above one ear and ripped a much larger wound as it emerged above the other.

"The Israeli propaganda is that they were killed in a work accident. These are the kinds of lies they tell all the time," he says. "They say all the dead are fighters. They say they do not deliberately kill children, but about a quarter of the dead from the first day of shooting are children. The evidence is here in the morgue. Does this girl look as if she was blown up by a bomb?"

Asma's body lies in the hospital mortuary unburied, like all the other dead from Tel al-Sultan, because their relatives are trapped in their homes by a curfew. Her 13-year-old brother's corpse is a short drive away in the cold-storage room of an Israeli-owned flower-growing company.

Small boy

Ahmed lies with 14 other bodies. Some are wrapped in the flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, but Ahmed is swaddled only in the white sheet wrapped around him in the ambulance. He was a small boy who could not easily be mistaken for a man.

Dr Nkaria rolls the child over to show a tiny round hole in his forehead, just above his fringe. There is a much larger hole at the back of the head where the bullet came out. Neither Asma nor Ahmed show signs of any other injuries, particularly of the kind that might be expected from a blast, such as shrapnel spread across the body, burns, or mutilation.

"This is what the Israelis claim is a 'work accident'," Dr Nkaria says.

He points to the corpse of another youth in the cold-store."This is Ibrahim Alqun. He is 14 years old. He was shot in the back of the head. The bullet came out of his right eye," he says. The child's face is badly mutilated by the wound.

The bodies of the children continued to pile up in the mortuary yesterday.

Saber Abu Libda, 13, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers after he left his home in Tel al-Sultan in the morning to find water for his family.

Dr Nkaria's finger probes a tiny hole in the small child's back which masks the devastation done to his heart as the bullet shot through it.

"No one can say this child was a fighter. Look at the size of him and look where they shoot him - in the back, not coming to attack someone," the doctor says.

Saber stepped out of the door with his 16-year-old brother Yousef. He too was shot, but has survived so far, with critical chest injuries.

A third brother, Ayub, ran out to save his younger siblings and was also cut down by the snipers.

"My brothers only went out for water," Ayub says.

"We heard the gunshots and I went to their rescue. They were both lying there bleeding and I was shot in the arm.

"We tried to pull Yousef to the house, but we couldn't and he lay there bleeding for half an hour until the ambulance came."

Other children are luckier. Twelve-year-old Ahmed Hussein looked out of his window in Tel al-Sultan on Tuesday afternoon. A sniper's bullet hit him in the shoulder. The bullet passed through a fleshy part and hit his aunt in the hand.

"I thought the Israelis had withdrawn. I went to the window to see. I wanted to get out of the house and they shot me," he says in his hospital bed.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1220635,00.html

http://www.rense.com/general53/rising.htm


Here is more for your reading pleasure

http://www.clubvibes.com/forum/topic.asp?topic_id=241312

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles4/Dagan-Levy_Eyewitness.htm

http://www.rememberthesechildren.org/remember2004.html

http://www.israel-state-terrorism.org/children.html

http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/0/13d6ceb4df7dd6d585256cec0056d7e4?OpenDocument

http://www.khilafah.com/palestine_site/articles/palestine_stats.htm

http://www.palsolidarity.org/activists/tomhurndall/tomInitialstatement.php


A big WARNING, this is what those scumbags do in pictures, have a good look HBN

http://www.koshertaxscam.com/atroc/