World - Reuters
Craving for Cookies Costs Gaza Girl Her Life
Date: Fri Apr 23,10:10 AM ET
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
JABALYA CAMP, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - A craving for cookies led nine-year-old Mona Abu Tabaq to dash outside her Gaza Strip (news - web sites) home to a nearby grocery store as gunfire echoed in the streets.
On her way back home, the Palestinian girl was fatally wounded by what witnesses said was Israeli fire. Hundreds of mourners, some chanting vows of revenge, attended her funeral on Friday in the Jabalya refugee camp.
"I ask God to punish the killers. Only seeing (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon's head on a platter would be enough to console me," her mother, Shifa Abu Tabaq, said.
Mona was one of 16 Palestinians killed during a three-day Israeli army incursion into northern Gaza to stop militants from bombarding Jewish settlements with homemade rockets and mortars, attacks which wounded nine Israelis earlier in the week.
Another child killed on Thursday was a four-year-old girl who died of tear gas inhalation inside her home at the site of an army raid in Beit Lahiya.
Children on both sides of the conflict have been frequent victims in three-and-a-half years of violence. The army says soldiers do their utmost to avoid civilian casualties, but accuse militants of using non-combatants for cover.
An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers "did not fire at (residential) buildings or children" on Thursday and that they had shot back at Palestinian gunmen who hurled grenades and fired automatic weapons and an anti-tank missile at them.
But Palestinians insisted Israeli troops were confronted only by stone-throwers.
Mona's mother said she allowed her daughter to go out to buy biscuits because she believed the danger was further away.
"She found the store closed and as she tried to return home they shot her dead," Abu Tabaq said. She said a bullet fired by a soldier pierced her daughter's stomach.
Mohammad Nassar, a medic at Jabalya Hospital, said the little girl held her hand over her gaping wound before she died, telling him she wanted to go home because her mother would be worried that she was late.
But the last words she uttered was, "Allah, there is only one God," the tearful medic added. He wondered how such a young child "knew what people are supposed to say before death."
Many children attended Mona's funeral on Friday, among them Ghadir, also aged nine, who had gone to the morgue beforehand to plant a kiss on her slain friend's forehead.
"I used to play with her all the time. I came to see her for the last time before they bury her," the weeping girl said.
SOURCE
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.