- RAFAH -- Rawan Mohammed Abu
Zaed, aged three and a half, went to the shop with two of her sisters to
spend their pocket money on sweets.
-
- Sick of being cooped up at home after a week of Israeli
army attacks, the girls were taking advantage of a lull in the violence,
but minutes after leaving home Rawan was shot in the face and neck by an
Israeli tank.
-
- Her dying words were: 'Mummy, Mummy'.
-
- Three hours after her death yesterday, her father, Mohammed,
placed Rawan's small body in a grave. All he had left of her was a photograph
of a pretty elfin girl.
-
- The 45-year-old father of 12 cried as he told of how
Rawan used to run to him and how she loved to sleep in his arms. 'Her mother
died giving birth,' he said, 'so I always try to compensate, and that's
why we are so attached. I am both mum and dad to her. She's very intelligent,
more like a 10-year-old than a three-year-old.'
-
- According to the Palestinians, Rawan was the 11th child
to be killed by the Israeli Defence Force since Operation Rainbow began
last week. During the funeral, IDF planes circled the skies, giving the
citizens of Rafah little hope for a let-up in the offensive that has killed
at least 60 Palestinians so far.
-
- The Israeli attacks began in response to the killing
of seven soldiers here. The IDF claims it is targeting only militants and
demolishing houses that conceal tunnels used to smuggle arms from Egypt.
'Does Rawan drive a tank?' asked Mohammed. 'Does she fire rockets?
-
-
- There was none of the usual rhetoric common at the funerals
of Palestinians killed by the IDF. There was just Mohammed, an unemployed
labourer who used to work in Israel, saying quietly: 'Sharon is the first
and last to blame.'
-
- Rawan's uncle Abed trembled as he denounced her killers:
'She was an innocent child. And she deserved a gentle hand after losing
her mother. Instead, she was killed by an Israeli hand with an American
weapon.'
-
- A stench of decaying flesh permeated the cemetery: half-filled
mass graves remain open for shaheeds or martyrs. There were no gunmen firing
over Rawan's tomb, and the crowd was smaller than the usual turnout of
thousands to honour the death of an infant.
-
- Instead, most of her neighbours were packing their belongings
on donkey carts and fleeing the homes they fear will be destroyed during
the next Israeli incursion.
-
- Much of the area is without electricity or water and
looks as if it has been hit by an earthquake: the roads have been ploughed
up by tanks and whole streets of former houses are in ruins.
-
- At least 3,000 people have been made homeless in the
past week and thousands more, including Mohammed, expect to join their
ranks over the weekend.
-
- 'I never expected my child to be a shaheed. Now I will
make a prison for my other children at home and I won't let them ever leave
the house.'
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://WWW.GUARDIAN.CO.UK/israel/Story/0,2763,1222713,00.html
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