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

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 fiance arrived from Haifa on January 6th, bringing gold jewelry to finalize the marriage (an Arab custom.) He attended her funeral instead.