October 1, 2003:
Mohammed's younger brother
Issam was seriously injured
and was taken to the hospital
about a week ago. His leg
was amputated and he is
undergoing medical treatment.

October 18, 2003:
Mohammad's younger brother,
Hussam [17 yrs old], was killed
by the Israeli army today.

Hussam was sitting at home
when he was shot in the face,
chest, back, legs. He had
nothing to do with any violent
or even political movement.

Hussam's crime is that he was
a Palestinian.

— The Webmaster

The Schoolgirl Who “Needed to Be Killed”

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/Jan_Feb_2005/0501009.html

Washington Report, January/February 2005, page 9

TO THIS DAY, the family and friends of 13-year-old Iman al-Hams are at a loss to explain how or why she wandered into the “closed military zone” in Tal al Sultan in Rafah on her way to school on the morning of Oct. 6, 2004. Early wire service reports speculated that she might have been late for school and was taking a shortcut. The actual geography, however, makes that unlikely.

But Iman never made it to school, because she was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers, who riddled her body with bullets. As often happens when the Israeli army kills or injures Palestinians, the IDF delayed the ambulance from al Najjar Hospital trying to reach her. But with five bullets in her head—of the “at least 15” the Dr. Ali Musa, the hospital’s director, reported finding—Iman was dead long before she ever reached the hospital. Indeed, so much blood had soaked into her UNRWA school uniform and into the ground where she fell that her body was nearly bloodless when it finally reached the hospital.

Israeli army spokespersons quickly reported that the soldiers in the watchtower surveillance post thought the child was a courier for militants and concealing a bomb in her book bag—a claim most Palestinians found absurd. Not only is it virtually inconceivable that any militant group would allow a young girl to undertake a combat mission, there were many witnesses to the fact that Iman was never closer than 100 meters to any soldier in the fortified watchtower when the first shots were fired. And the IDF had to concede that a search of her book bag proved it contained only books.

Muddying the waters further were the next actions of “Captain R,” the company commander, who approached Iman—wounded, according to Palestinian witnesses, but alive and lying on the ground helpless—and first fired two shots into her at close range to “confirm the kill.” Then, according to IDF witnesses, he walked a short distance away, turned back, approached the child again and emptied the magazine of his automatic weapon into her body.

Although the IDF did admit fairly promptly that Iman’s shooting had been “a mistake,” “Captain R’s” initial explanation was that as he approached the child, he came under fire from militants some 300 yards away, and fired into the ground to deter fire. His superiors at first accepted his version of events, despite some notable lapses of logic. (How does firing at the ground “deter fire”? And since when, many asked, had the IDF been hesitant about returning Palestinian fire? And if the soldiers feared that Iman’s book bag held explosives, why risk detonation by spraying automatic fire near it?)

Still, as needless as Iman’s death seemed, the case might have ended there—as has happened with the deaths of so many other Palestinian children—had not soldiers in the Givati brigade anonymously approached the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot with a very different version of the events. It was they who testified to “Captain R’s” approaching the fallen child and “confirming the kill” with a hail of automatic fire. They expressed outrage that their own reputations as honorable soldiers had been “besmirched” by the commander’s insistence on “confirming the kill” of an unarmed schoolgirl.

There are many unofficial stories of IDF soldiers “confirming a kill”—i.e., firing a lethal shot, usually to the head, into an apparently mortally wounded enemy. Frequently, it is alleged, this is a misnomer: the victim has been wounded and is immobilized, but obviously is alive, and death is not confirmed, but inflicted. In any event, Israeli army regulations never mention the practice.

Allegations that the soldiers who spoke out were disgruntled because “Captain R” was a strict disciplinarian received little credence, and “Captain R”—whose name has never been revealed—was removed from active duty as the army continued its investigation.

In November, the soldiers’ veracity was confirmed when Israel’s Channel Two television broadcast a military communications tape of a conversation among some of the soldiers involved.

Troops firing with light weapons and machine guns on a figure moving in the “no entry zone” quickly realized their target was a young girl. Someone in the operations room asked: “Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?” Replied a soldier in the surveillance watchtower, “It’s a little girl. She’s running defensively eastward, a girl of about 10. She’s behind the embankment, scared to death.”

Four minutes later, it was reported the girl had been hit and fallen. The surveillance tower reported, “Receive, I think that one of the positions took her out.” Operations asked, “What, she fell?” and the soldier in the tower replied, “She’s not moving right now.”

The tape records the company commander as saying: “I and another soldier…are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill...” After a pause, he added: “Receive a situation report—we fired and killed her. She was wearing pants, jeans, an undershirt, a shirt. Also, she was wearing a keffiyeh on her head. I also confirmed the kill. Over.”

Then “Captain R” added: “Anyone who’s mobile, moving in the zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed.”

“Captain R” has been indicted on five relatively light charges, including “illegal use of a weapon,” exceeding his authority to the extent of jeopardizing human life, and “obstructing justice” as a result of his initial false report.

As reported [last week] in the UK newspaper The Independent, Lea Tsemel, the Israeli lawyer representing Iman’s family, was angered by the charges, saying, “I believe that the commander and the soldiers who fired should all have been charged with murder.”

The prosecution, however, decided against even a manslaughter charge, apparently due to a lack of evidence as to which bullets actually killed the child. Based on the accounts of Palestinian witnesses, however, Iman’s parents believe their daughter was alive until “Captain R” approached and “confirmed the kill.”

Asked just how lenient the charges against “Captain R” really are, Tsemel explained that even if found guilty on all counts, “the Israeli court could sentence him to as little as three years.”

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz,“Captain R’s” lawyer, Shamuel Shenfeld, called the accusations unfounded and said his client will plead innocent. This may make for a longer trial, but for a more thorough exploration of the evidence. There will, however, be no forensic evidence from the victim’s body. Not only do many devout Muslims consider post-mortem examinations to be shameful, but Samier al-Hams, Iman’s father, also considers it completely unnecessary. “It was clear from the TV interviews with the other soldiers who were with the Israeli officer they’re calling ‘R,’” he said, “that this ‘R’ is the killer of my daughter. I guess my daughter’s case will test the Israeli law,” he added.

To many Palestinians, it will test more than the technicalities of Israeli jurisprudence. When one mentions Iman al-Hams to people in Rafah, their questions have little to do with legal procedures. Why, you hear from person after person, were shots fired at all, when at least one soldier identified the small figure 100 yards from his fortified tower as a ‘little girl…running defensively…scared to death?’”

“Why did they have to shoot?” asked one neighbor. “She was running away from the prohibited zone.”

Captain R’s indictment has done little to protect Rafah’s children. In one week alone, several small children were injured by aerial shelling in the center of town, while on Sunday, Nov. 28, four-year-old Shaimaa Abu Shammala was shot in the neck while playing outside her home in Block O, and later died of her injuries. Whether on the street, inside their homes, or in their classrooms, there seems to be no real safety anywhere for the children of Rafah—not to mention the tens of thousands of other civilians here. As one mother in Block O put it, “It is open season on our children every day.”

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