Tragedies all

The latest from B'Tselem: Tragedies all:

Palestinian kills a 13 year-old boy and injures a 7 year-old boy
B'Tselem strongly condemnss [sic] the killing of a 13 year-old boy and the injuring of a 7 year-old boy by a Palestinian in the settlement of Bat Ayin in the Bethlehem district. Deliberate attacks against civilians are immoral and illegal. Wilful killing of civilians is defined as a "grave breach" of international humanitarian law and is a war crime.*


Phosphorous victim from Gaza dies
Ghada Abu Halima, 21, a Gazan mother of two, died on 29 March. Abu Halima was wounded and 5 of her relatives, among them 4 children, were killed, when the military shelled their house with white phosphorus during "Operation Cast Lead". In her testimony of 9 January, she described the attack.


Punishment of policeman who killed Palestinian increased
The Israeli Supreme Court has increased the prison sentence of border policeman Yanai Lazla for the killing of 18-year-old Imran Abu Hamdiya in 2002. Lazla and three other policemen threw Abu Hamdiya from a jeep moving at high speed after they had abducted, beaten, and abused him. B'Tselem and the Palestinian human rights organization al-Haq exposed the affair.

*3rd April: The following has just been brought to my attention regarding the Israeli boy who was murdered, and the one who was injured, by axe in the occupied territories yesterday (see the opening paragraph of this post), and, as my commenter says, it is neither an explanation, nor an excuse, but it does provide more information. Emphasis is mine.:

Ofer Gamliel, the jailed father of Yair Gamliel, who was wounded in the Bat Ayin terror attack, on Thursday refused to visit his son in the hospital accompanied by prison guards.

The Prison Service on Thursday said it would allow Gamliel to visit his son with wardens chaperoning him and without handcuffs. Gamliel who was sentenced seven years ago for participating in a plot to attack a Palestinian girls' school demanded to be released temporarily in order to visit his son.

. . .

The second victim, a 13-year-old who was killed in the attack, has been identified as Shlomo Nativ, the son of Haim and Ravital Nativ, one of the original settlers who founded Bat Ayin, a community of secular-cum-religious Jews.

Ofer Gamliel is currently serving a prison sentence for his involvement in the 'Bat Ayin underground,' which had planned to carry out an attack several years ago at a girls' school in the A-Tor neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

The 'Bat Ayin underground' was active in the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the early years of the Second Intifada.

In April 2002, police arrested Shlomo Dvir, Yarden Morag and Ofer Gamliel, 'Bat Ayin underground' members, who were later convicted of attempting to place an explosive device near the East Jerusalem school.

There is more information in the news article. I wonder if the background will be printed in the Western papers which cover the story. You might also like to look at the Alison Weir documentary on the evident disparity between reporting the deaths of Palestinian children and Israeli children. Both are tragic, of course, therefore both should be equally reported.