Israel Kills 2 Women During Mosque Siege
Israel Kills 2 Women During Mosque Siege
Israeli forces opened fire on a group of women who streamed to a Gaza mosque to serve as human shields for gunmen holed up there. Two women were killed and about 10 injured, hospitals said.
JERUSALEM, Nov. 3 — Israeli troops fired at a large crowd of unarmed Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip today as the women approached a mosque to help Palestinian militants holed up inside. Two women were killed and about 10 were injured, according to hospital workers.
One of the Palestinian woman who ringed a mosque in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun fell to the ground after being wounded.
The shooting provoked widespread outrage among Palestinians.
The Israeli military said its fire was directed at Palestinian gunmen who were hiding among the women as they marched toward the Um al-Nasir mosque in Beit Hanun, the town in the northeastern Gaza Strip where Israeli troops and militants have been battling for the past three days. The Israelis said eight militants were shot, and that they were not aware that women were hit, but were investigating.
Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, angrily called on the international community to “come here and witness the daily massacres that are being carried out against the Palestinian nation.”
Mr. Haniya also praised the women “who led the protest to break the siege of Beit Hanun.”
The shooting, which was captured by television cameras, was the most dramatic episode so far in the fighting in Beit Hanun. Israeli forces entered the town early on Wednesday in an attempt to stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets from the area into Israel.
As Israeli forces pursued the militants in the town on Thursday, an estimated 60 gunmen dashed inside the Um al-Nasir mosque, initiating a standoff that lasted through the night.
Israeli troops in armored vehicles surrounded the mosque. For several hours, soldiers used loudspeakers to call on the militants to surrender, and several did, according to the military. The Israelis also fired tear gas and stun grenades into the mosque in an attempt to force the gunmen out.
Around 3 a.m. today, the gunmen in the mosque began firing on the Israeli soldiers, who shot back, and heavy exchanges ensued, the military said.
The Israeli army called in an armored bulldozer and used it to knock down one wall of the mosque compound, the military and Palestinian witnesses said.
Early this morning, a Palestinian radio station called on women in the town to march to the mosque and support the gunmen inside. A short time later, hundreds of women, dressed in flowing black abayas and wearing head scarves, headed to the the scene.
As they approached the mosque, shots rang out, but the women continued marching. A moment later, a number of women were hit, and the crowd scattered. Some of the wailing women turning back, while others kept advancing toward the mosque, climbing over improvised dirt barriers set up by the Israeli forces.
“We heard the call for women to help the fighters, and we decided to go,” said Mona Abu Jasir, 37, who was hit by a bullet in the right leg. “We had no weapons, and we were walking toward the mosque when I was shot.”
Television footage showed at least one man in the crowd, though there was no indication that he had a weapon. The man was shot and fell to the ground, and was surrounded by women until rescue workers arrived.
One marcher, Suhad el-Masri, 28, said she and several of her relatives were carrying abayas — long flowing gowns — and scarves to give to the men.
“We took them so they could disguise themselves as women and escape,” said Ms. Masri. Her sister, Hiba Rajab, 20, sustained serious injuries when she was shot in both legs and her left arm.
In the ensuing chaos, some women reached the mosque, and the gunmen managed to slip away, the Israeli military and Palestinian witnesses said. It was not clear whether the gunmen dressed as women to facilitate their escape. Shortly after the standoff ended, the roof of the mosque collapsed, apparently from the cumulative damage sustained in the fighting.
Palestinian hospitals identified the two women who were killed as Amna Abu Oudah, 42, and Intissar Ali, 40.
Later in the day, about 1,000 women marched outside Egypt’s diplomatic mission in Gaza City, denouncing the Israeli actions and calling on Egypt to intervene.
Also in Beit Hanun, two young Palestinian males, ages 15 and 18, were killed by Israeli fire, Palestinian medical workers said. Over the past three days, more than 20 Palestinians have been killed, including militants and civilians, as well as one Israeli soldier.
So far, the Israeli incursion has not reduced the Palestinian rocket fire, which has continued for the past three days. Militants fired several more rockets from northern Gaza into southern Israel today, but there was no damage or injuries, the Israeli military said. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers arrested the Palestinian minister for housing and public works, Abdel Rahman Zaidan, who belongs to Hamas, the radical Islamic group that leads the Palestinian Authority. Israel has arrested more than two dozen Palestinian legislators and cabinet ministers from Hamas in the West Bank over the past four months.
The crackdown began after Palestinian militants, including those from Hamas, staged a cross-border raid and captured an Israeli soldier, and then took him into Gaza. That event also prompted the Israeli military to return to Gaza, which the army had left in September 2005.
Women left dead as gunmen escape
Panic … Palestinian women run for cover after Israeli troops opened fire.
Photo: Reuters/Suhaib Salem
SLOWLY at first, then with growing confidence, the crowd of veiled Palestinian women approached the outer wall of the Gaza mosque.
Inside, 60 Palestinian gunmen were hiding out, pinned down by Israeli tanks and troops positioned just a few hundred metres away, on the other side of an earth barricade.
The women, about four dozen of them, some elderly and some teenagers, were hoping to help the gunmen flee, or at least act as "human shields" and press for their release unharmed.
Two of the women were to die - and all of the gunmen to escape.
As the women walked down a deserted road towards the mosque yesterday, pressing themselves up against a high sandstone wall on their right, with Israeli troops off to their left, gunfire rang out from the Israeli positions.
The women pushed on, walking faster and pressing closer together, encouraging one another as they went.
More shots cracked overhead as the Israeli troops tried to force the women to turn back. Some did turn around, but most pushed on.
Then, up ahead, towards the front of the procession, several gunshots rang out from Israeli troops, and one woman, dressed in a traditional tan-brown hijab, fell to the ground. Another, critically wounded, fell nearby.
The Israeli Army said later it had fired at armed Palestinians but was investigating whether it had also shot the women.
Screaming and panicked, several of the women's colleagues rushed to help. As one of the women lay motionless on the pavement, her cream veil fell away. A trickle and then a steady stream of blood emerged from under her body and ran into the drain at the side of the road.
"Bring an ambulance! Bring an ambulance!" screamed the women, throwing their arms up in the air and wailing.
Others grabbed one another and began to flee, then turned back and pushed on.
Within seconds two ambulances were on the scene, and the woman, her limbs hanging lifelessly, was bundled onto a stretcher. The critically wounded woman nearby was also picked up, and later died in hospital. Six more were wounded.
"World, where are you?" screamed a woman towards a television camera. "People are being killed. There are martyrs."
Moments later several women ran back down the road from the direction of the mosque, struggling to carry among them another of the wounded, a young woman in a black hijab, the bottom of her jeans showing.
On the street, another woman held a patterned black headdress coated in blood.
"Look! The brains of a woman of the resistance, splattered on her scarf. Look at it," she said, staring into a camera.
At a nearby hospital, men waited to find out what had happened to their wives.
"I urged my wife to join the other brave women who went to help end the siege of the hero fighters," said Khaled Faleh, a 34-year-old husband. He did not know if she was still alive.
The dramatic events came on the third day of an Israeli assault on the town of Beit Hanoun, the largest operation it has conducted in the Gaza Strip in months, designed to put a stop to militants firing homemade rockets into Israel. The gunmen had holed up in the al-Nasir mosque on Thursday evening.
In the melee, the gunmen fled the mosque, and Hamas, the Islamist militant group that heads the Palestinian Government, said they had also managed to escape from Beit Hanoun, which is almost entirely surrounded by Israeli troops. The Israeli Army confirmed the gunmen had escaped.
Reuters
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