CPTnet
January 14, 2001
HEBRON: The Women and Children Weren't Shooting
by Rebecca Johnson and Bob Holmes

When eleven year old Moath Ahmed Abu Hadwan left the house
December 31st, he was still wearing the new shirt and trousers his
mother bought for him in celebration of the end of Ramadan.
He told her he was going to play in the school yard with his friends
Abdel, Naji and Muhammed. On January 3rd, Palestinian journalist
Kawther Salaam and CPTer Bob Holmes sat in the small two room house in
the old city of Hebron, surrounded by thirty women, family and
neighbours, as his mother and the three boys told the story.

Heading home after playing, the boys heard shooting and decided it
wasn't safe so went instead to the mosque for afternoon prayer.
After prayer they were almost home when the shooting started again.
They felt safe in the narrow street with houses two stories high on the
right and three stories high on the left. But an Israeli tank or rocket
shell hit the top of the three-story building and shrapnel filled the
street, wounding both
Moath and Abdel. A man picked up Moath and ran with him, but
blinded by the blood spurting from Moath's head and mouth, tripped
and fell. Others helped and bothboys were taken to the hospital.
(The surviving boys showed Salaam and CPT members the
blood-soaked ground, now circled by rocks, a small martyr's shrine.)

Naji ran to tell Moath's mother huddled with her other children for
safety . Moath's father was protecting his nieces and nephews
nearby. Both parents went immediately to the hospital. Moath had
died. Abdel, who is mute, had his head and arm wounds treated and
was released. The aunt of the new "martyr" asked, "Who will defend our
right to live in freedom without bombing and killing? It is not justice to
live like refugees in our own land."

Meanwhile, Rebecca Johnson accompanied Yusra, a neighbour, to
the hospital to visit the child of a friend also wounded in the shelling
attack on New Year's eve. Fourteen year old Abir Salema Kharami lay
in bed with an IV hookup and bandages around her stomach and left
hand. Abir had been on the steps of her home, about to head out to
visit her two cousins in the hospital when the shrapnel sprayed her.
Her grandmother held up her bloodstained shirt and undershirt, full of
holes.
Upon leaving, Yusra reiterated the comments of others,
"Everyone is against us, and what have we done? We just want to live
in peace."

Six days later, on January 5th, nineteen year old Ahlam Al Jabali
went up to the rooftop of their four story building to help her husband's
sister, eighteen year old Areeg Al Jabali, take in the laundry. From the
roof there is a clear line of sight to the Israeli settlement of
Beit Haggai, but the family had never been shot at before. When the
machine-guns in the settlement started firing, the
two women ran into the stairwell and hugged each other. A bullet
entered Areeg's back and went through her body to lodge in Ahlam's
abdomen. Trailing blood on every step they ran down to the second
floor where the family was preparing supper. They fell through the
door, and Areeg died on the floor of the entrance. The bullet
was removed from Ahlam in the hospital where Salaam heard
and recorded her story. Ahlam died two days later.

Areeg's fianc