On 1 Feb. 2008, Israeli authorities released the bodies of Mahmoud and Muhammed Sabarnah to the Palestine Red Crescent Society for burial in their home community of Beit Ummar in the Hebron District.…

After noon prayers at the mosque in memory of the two men—now called “martyrs”—a funeral procession of 3,000 mourners began carrying the bodies towards the cemetery. Six internationals, including CPTers Tarek Abuata and Doug Pritchard and four members of the International Solidarity Movement, positioned themselves almost at the front of the procession. As the procession came within sight of road #60 and the final approach to the cemetery, the IDF had closed a gate across the street. Before anyone reached the gate, and without any provocation or warning, the IDF began firing on the procession, first with live ammunition, and then with plastic bullets, tear gas, and concussion grenades.

I sat in the Jerusalem Hotel restaurant on Sunday, 27 January 2007 and read the headline in the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz, "Yeshiva counselor who killed terrorists lives to tell the tale." In that article Elyakim Kovatch, the counselor who shot two intruders, used the word "terrorist" twelve times to refer to the young men he killed.

I boarded the bus for Hebron, and got off at Beit Ummar to meet the grieving families of the men whom Kovatch had shot.