| Subject: Merry Christmas Grandma ... here is your present from Israel.... |
Author:
Rudolph
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Date Posted: 17:40:47 12/24/02 Tue
...another murder by Israeli Gestapo IDF of an old woman buying a bag of sweets for her grandchildren.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-503731,00.html
December 05, 2002
Mission to buy children sweets cost grandmother, 95, her life
By Stephen Farrell
A STARK statement confirmed the end of a life that began during the Ottoman Empire, survived British rule, two World Wars and countless Israeli-Arab conflicts.
“The above-mentioned old woman arrived dead,” the medical document said.
Fatima Mohammed Hassan Issa, 95, the oldest Palestinian victim of the two-year intifada, was apparently shot in the back by an Israeli soldier on a prohibited back route used by Palestinians to sneak past Israeli checkpoints. She died in a bloodstained taxi with a bag of sweets for her great-great-grandchildren resting between her feet.
The taxi driver and other Palestinian witnesses told The Times yesterday that they saw an Israeli soldier pump a burst of automatic fire into the rear of the half-empty yellow Volkswagen Caravelle as it tried to flee an approaching patrol on the rutted track north of Ramallah.
Israel has opened an investigation. Palestinians have long accused Israeli troops of opening fire on civilians, ambulances and other vehicles that pose no threat.
Israeli officials refused to comment before the outcome of the inquiry, but denied the allegation on the Palestinian medical report at Ramallah Hospital that Mrs Issa had died “after being shot by an explosive bullet in the back” on Tuesday. Israeli military sources said that dum-dum bullets were not used.
Mrs Issa left the vine-covered family home in Attarah village at 7am that day, telling relations that she was going to Ramallah to buy sweets and toys for the children at the end of Ramadan, her grandchildren said. Although elderly, her eyesight, hearing and mobility were unimpaired — she made the even longer journey to Jerusalem once a week to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque.
Returning from Ramallah at 11am, she came across the busy unofficial junction known to Israeli soldiers as Chaos Road. Scores of taxis wait on both sides of a giant ditch dug by Israeli bulldozers to stop Palestinian terrorists and civilians moving in and out of the West Bank city.
Rami Jawdat, a fellow resident of Attarah, saw her climbing up the hill, took her bags and loaded her, another woman passenger, Kifaya Qadadha, and her two daughters into his taxi. Moments later, he said, the crowd began running away and then an Israeli soldier appeared at his window, smashed the mirror and window with his rifle butt and went behind the car.
“I heard him pull the magazine, then seconds later I heard shooting,” he said. “She died instantly. She was sort of frozen with her head tilted to one side.”
The driver went on: “Kifaya said: ‘They are shooting, I have been injured.’ She opened the door and pushed her children out, then people arrived and pulled the old lady out of the car. She was pouring with blood from her back.”
Other drivers rushed her to the medical centre near by, but she was already dead after, the report says, being “exposed to gunshot in the left aspect of the lower back”.
Mrs Issa was buried yesterday in a hilltop cemetery in Atarrah at a ceremony attended by hundreds of her family and friends. Distraught relations described her as a respected village elder and matchmaker, a source of herbal remedies and undisputed boss of her clan’s womenfolk.
“We wanted her to stop going to Ramallah alone because we were afraid she would have a fall or something like that, but she just wouldn’t listen,” her grandson, Mahmoud, 40, said. “Things like this don’t happen in the jungles of Africa. They are animals, monsters.”
At the scene of the shooting, which, despite remaining closed to Palestinians “for security reasons”, was still packed yesterday, witness accounts varied. Most contradicted the driver, saying that the car was not stationary but was fleeing when the soldier fired, albeit only at a crawl because it was stuck in a mêlée of vehicles and people.
However, all agreed that the soldier had opened fire from behind and that he was, contrary to Israeli reports, stationary and took aim before firing.
An inspection of the vehicle shows 13 obvious bullet holes, nine through the rear door.
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