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TITLE: In West Bank, Death Rides the Back Seat |
AUTHOR: Ben Lynfield |
PUB: The Scotsman |
DATE: January 25, 2001 |
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To a reporter desensitised by four months of Palestinian-Israeli violence, she was at first yet another Palestinian fatality. But to her family in this village near the city of Nablus, Fatima Abu Jaish was a young woman with dreams whose life was snuffed out for no reason at all. Ms Abu Jaish, 22, was a receptionist at the Arab Specialised Hospital in Nablus. She was the sixth of nine sisters in a family that depended for financial support on her and an older sister, Rose, 28. Their father passed away more than a year ago. "She hoped to have a good job and a good salary, to help our family and our sisters," Rose said. "Education is important to us and we wanted our sisters to go to university and have good marks. She always told me 'I want to be like you and to be successful'." On 7 January, Fatima was killed on her way home from work as she sat in the back seat of a vehicle driven by Rose's husband, Nasser, a bank loan officer. Rose, who works as a secretary at the hospital, was sitting in the front seat next to Nasser. An Israeli soldier fired a bullet through the trunk of the car. It pierced the back seat, then went through Fatima's back and into her heart. The Israeli army has not yet decided whether it should investigate the shooting. If it does so, it would be only the fourth time an investigation is launched into suspected misuse of weapons since the start of the Palestinian uprising on 28 September. No findings have been announced as yet for any of the other cases, one of which concerns the October shooting in the head of a 60-year-old Palestinian riding a donkey. The violence has taken the lives of 372 people, the overwhelming majority of them Palestinians. There have been thousands of shooting incidents in the West Bank alone during that period. According to the accounts of Rose and Nasser, there was no warning before the firing of the single round. Nasser said the shot was fired from about one hundred metres. Rose says it was less than that. The shot came after the car, the fourth in a line of 14 Palestinian vehicles, turned off of a dirt road used by Palestinians to circumvent a nearby army barricade. The barricade was aimed at keeping Arabs off the main road that passes Beit Dajan and another Palestinian village, Beit Furik, and continues to the Jewish settlement of Elon Moreh. His Fiat 127 and all the other vehicles were headed towards Beit Dajan and Beit Furik and away from the soldiers, Nasser added. What was the soldier thinking? What was he aiming at? In the absence of an investigation, the truth, if it emerges at all, appears likely to be known only to the soldier, and perhaps his commander. Many thousands of Palestinians on their way to and from work use dirt roads every day to circumvent army barricades. That is because most of the main routes between villages and towns have been closed to them since the start of the uprising. Human rights activists say the incident is far from isolated. The army, they charge, is failing to investigate misuse of weapons and as a result, soldiers are getting the message that free-wheeling gunfire is sanctioned. The people who pay the price, say the activists, are innocent Palestinians. Noga Kadmon, of the Israeli B'Tselem human rights organisation said that the army's lack of investigation "gives a spirit of legitimacy" to acts like the shooting of Ms Abu Jaish. "If soldiers do it and they are not punished, then the general atmosphere becomes that these acts are not forbidden," Ms Kadmon said. The army denies the charge, saying it is in its own interest to investigate soldiers conduct, since misuse of weapons could fuel Palestinian violence. There have been instances when soldiers were disciplined by their commanding officers. Their punishments included suspensions or transfer to other units, said Lt Col Olivier Rafowicz, an army spokesman. "We are combating terrorists and people who are trying to hurt us. In this difficult situation of violence we have to defend ourselves. There is no policy to have innocents become victims. Human lives are equal and we have to do everything to preserve them," said Lt Col Rafowicz. Alex Fishman, the military affairs correspondent for Yediot Ahronot newspaper, wrote last week that field commanders oppose the launching of investigations out of fear they will harm the morale of their troops. In Beit Dajjan, Rose Abu Jaish recalled a conversation she had with Fatima a year ago: "She kept telling me that she wanted to take some of my responsibilities because I had so much to bear to support the family. She told me 'don't worry, you must marry and have children, I will do the work'." END |