PALESTINIANS
Sixty-six per cent of the 642 Palestinian children who died during the second intifada were shot dead by Israeli soldiers, in the head, heart and neck.
"Just before he died, my son Mohammed was laughing at some cartoons on TV. His giggling lit up the house. I thanked Allah for giving me my son, and I made him a sandwich. He went out into the street with it. He came back in his brother's arms, dying from a shot to the heart." Sahirah was the mother of Mohammed, a happy six-year-old boy. Now she is the mother of corpse 515, on the long list of dead Palestinian children from this second Intifada: 642 minors, 420 of whom were younger than 15, according to figures collected by the organization B’Tselem, and confirmed by the UN. On the Israeli side, 112 children have died.
Yusef, 20, Mohammed's brother, remembers: "I leaned out the window and saw him running along with his sandwich. He tried to let out the word 'mom' and fell to the floor. Then I saw the blood. I brought him into the house. He still had a piece of bread in his mouth. The Israeli army blocked the ambulance, despite us begging them not to. My father had to run to the highway to ask for help, my dying brother in his arms. By then, nothing could be done."
Sahirah lives in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, where 22,000 Palestinians are crowded into three quartes of a square mile, under the watchful eye of the Israeli military base on Mount Jarzim. Incursions seeking members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade are commonplace...
