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

Israeli Extremists Lose, as a New Generation of Palestinians Wins

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/May-June_2005/0505010.html

Washington Report, May/June 2005, pages 10-11

THEY BREATHE the same air, drink the same water, are covered by the same blue sky, yet the extremists among the Israeli settlers in occupied Palestine live in a different universe from that of their Palestinian neighbors.

Ariel Sharon, who originally championed the settler movement in defiance of international law, is now determined to evacuate the 8,000 Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip this summer. President Mahmoud Abbas and all the Palestinian militant factions agreed to a cease-fire to expedite the Gaza evacuation and restart peace negotiations. In a move designed to re-ignite the intifada and destroy the Gaza withdrawal plans, however, extremist Israeli settlers declared their intention to attack the al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem on Sunday, April 10.

The Haram al Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, is actually a 35-acre compound which includes the Dome of the Rock, the al-Aqsa Mosque, and many other cultural and religious treasures. All Palestinians feel an obligation to safeguard these Islamic holy places—not just for the world’s Muslims, but for all people of good will. Thousands of Palestinians remained within the Sanctuary after Friday prayers on April 8. Israeli police forbade the Sunday demonstration, arresting some of the extremist settlers who defied orders to disperse.

“We will sacrifice our blood and bodies for the sake of our Holy Land,” said 41-year-old Abu Adham from Gaza’s Khan Younes refugee camp, “and we will never, never, never allow those people to attack our holy places.

“We are standing alone in front of this injustice,” he added, “but we will never give up when it comes to [attempts to] destroy our holy places.”

Abu Adham’s exact feelings are shared by hundreds of people in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and even in Jerusalem itself, where eyewitnesses emphasized that thousands of Palestinians who remained as residents after 1948 were able to move inside Al Haram under very difficult security obstacles and spend Saturday night inside the mosque, so as to protect it from any harm by extremist Jewish settlers the following morning.

Even more important than the physical victory, however, was the moral victory of young Palestinians, who understood that Al Quds—the Arabic name for Jerusalem, which literally means “The Holy”—has been historically Palestinian for centuries. Fair-minded people everywhere saw how the right-wing Israeli extremists are desperate to destroy any chance for a just peace. That Sunday, university students throughout occupied Palestine mounted peaceful demonstrations to protest “Al Quds in Danger.”

The previous day, Israeli troops again violated the cease-fire being observed by the Palestinian resistance when soldiers killed three teenagers who had chased a soccer ball into a “forbidden zone” in Rafah, near the Gaza-Egypt border. Although the Israeli occupiers apologized and militant leaders attempted to preserve the calm, other Palestinians militants fired Qassam rockets at illegal Israeli settlements. Apologies weighed against murdered children—is there any balance to such an equation?

Click here to view other reports

© All images on this site are copyrighted. If you wish to use any image,
please contact us at Rafahtoday@yahoo.com for written permission.