Palestinian Freedom Fighters Massacre Mother and Her Three Children

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday June 21, 2002 15:45 by Sean

Palestinian Freedom Fighters force Israel to continue occupation, and demonstrate the moral bankupcy of their cause by killing a mother and three children in cold blood

A Palestinian gunman killed five Israelis, including a mother and her three children, at a Jewish settlement near Nablus late Thursday, Israeli military sources said.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the raid "horrendous" and said it would result in an Israeli response. Meanwhile, Palestinian militants rejected Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's call to end attacks on Israeli civilians, 31 of whom have been killed since Tuesday.

Israeli military sources said Four other settlers were wounded.

At least one Palestinian gunman infiltrated the settlement and entered a house where a family with a large number of children lived, Israeli military sources said. A standoff and gun battle ensued, leaving five people dead and four wounded, according to Israeli ambulance services.

The dead included a mother and her three children, as well as an unrelated settler, the ambulance services said.

A neighbor, Rinat Cabara, told Reuters that seven children lived in the home.

"We're in the valley, and there aren't any fences here or anything," Cabara said. "We were in a panic ... trying to hope it won't be worse and praying that there wasn't anyone killed."

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility on local television for Thursday night's attack. The group has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on Israeli civilians and has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

Two other Palestinian groups -- the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- also claimed responsibility for the attack.

Another attack on a Jewish civilians was thwarted earlier in the day when a Palestinian armed with several rifles and a grenade was killed trying to infiltrate a school in Kiryat Arba, near Hebron.

The Itamar area was the scene of another Palestinian shooting attack in May that killed three students. Troops from the Israel Defense Forces continued to search for other gunmen who may have been involved in Thursday night's attack.

Militants reject Arafat's call to end attacks

Earlier Thursday, representatives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad announced they would continue to use suicide attacks as a weapon against Israelis despite Arafat's call for an end to the tactic.

The announcement followed a pair of Palestinian suicide bombings this week in Jerusalem that killed 26 people -- 19 aboard a bus Tuesday (Full story, Victims) and seven at a bus stop in the same city Wednesday. (Full story)

After Wednesday's terror attack, Israeli Apache helicopters hit targets in Gaza City and around the nearby Jabaliya refugee camp, the biggest Palestinian camp in the territories. Shortly after those airstrikes began, Arafat issued a statement in Arabic, calling on Palestinians to "completely stop" attacks against Israelis. He said the attacks were being used by Israel as a pretext for seizing Palestinian land. (Full story)

But when questioned by reporters Thursday, Arafat did not say what action the Palestinian Authority would take to stop the suicide bombers.

After Tuesday's bus bombing, the Israeli government announced it would recapture territory placed under Palestinian Authority control under the 1993 Oslo accords "as long as terror continues."

In the latest of a string of Israeli military actions following the announcement, Israeli troops entered the West Bank city of Tulkarem and declared the city closed Thursday. News outlets also reported that the Israeli military was issuing emergency call-up notices for reservists.

The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that in addition to Tulkarem, its troops were hunting for suspected Palestinian terrorists operating in the villages of Beit Eiva, Beit Wazan and Zara, near Nablus. Israeli troops have placed all the areas under curfew.

IDF units also were conducting similar searches for terror suspects in Bethlehem and the Deheishe refugee camp, while soldiers operated for a second day in Qalqilya and Jenin.

The week's events have prompted President Bush to put off a planned address on the Middle East, expected to include some vision of Palestinian statehood.

Bush's speech had been planned for late this week. A senior White House official said Bush spoke Thursday morning with Sharon, telling the Israeli leader that there ultimately must be a political dialogue to resolve disputes between Israel and the Palestinians. (Full story)

Secretary of State Colin Powell worked the phones Thursday, calling the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Britain and Russia to explain Bush's delay in presenting his Mideast address. Powell also urged the ministers to take action to stop the violence in the region.

At least one terrorist infiltrated the settlement of Itamar near Nablus last night, killing a mother and three of her eight children and the head of the community's emergency response team.
One of the murdered children was trapped in the family's house after it caught fire during the attack.

Two of the family's other children were wounded: a 10-year-old boy with serious gunshot wounds to the legs, and his 13-year old sister, with moderate to serious chest wounds.

Two border policemen suffered light to moderate wounds when the terrorist infiltrated the settlement, firing shots and forcing his way into one of the homes in the southeast side of the community just after 9 p.m. He barricaded themselves in the house and continued shooting at residents and security forces.

Exchanges of gunfire continued for a number of hours, delaying the treatment and evacuation of the wounded.

A special IDF unit broke into the house and succeeded in extricating the wounded Israelis, who were taken by a bulletproof Magen David Adom ambulance to a nearby helicopter pad and airlifted to Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer and Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.

The terrorist was killed by soldiers, who began searching for possible additional terrorists when the house caught fire. The terrorist jumped from a window in the house, exchanged fire with security forces, and was killed.

Due to winds in the area, other homes were also threatened by the flames.

The community's emergency response team took up positions as security forces arrived at the scene and surrounded the home.

Hezi Tzuriel, a resident of Eilon Moreh, arrived at the community minutes after receiving reports of the attack. Due to the heavy gunfire, paramedics were unable to approach the home and were forced to wait near the entrance to the community until the wounded were extricated and transferred by a bulletproof vehicle that was able to get closer to the home.

Throughout the ordeal residents in the community were ordered to remain inside their homes. The location of the attack is close to the Hetzim Yeshiva, where a terrorist infiltrated and murdered three teenage yeshiva students and wounded two others on the night of May 29.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was informed of last night's attack while at a Keren Hayesod event at an army base near Modi'in. He left immediately for Tel Aviv, where he held consultations with IDF and security officials.

Sharon is expected to convene the security cabinet this morning to weigh Israel's response to the latest wave of terrorist attacks.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack.

An anonymous caller told Reuters that an armed offshoot of the PFLP, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, carried out the attack, calling it "a reaction to Israeli fence-building... and to challenge the repeated Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories."

A high security alert was put into effect last night for all Jewish communities in the Nablus area.

With her head wrapped in bandages, Penina Eisenmann pushed herself out of her hospital bed yesterday to go to the double funeral in Ofra of her daughter, Gal, five, and her mother, Noa Alon, 60.

"It's the last thing I can do for them," Penina told reporters yesterday at Jerusalem's Hadassah-University Hospital in Ein Kerem.

The last thing she remembers before the terrorist attack that murdered seven in Jerusalem on Wednesday, she is holding her daughter's hand. They are crossing the street by the French Hill intersection. Ahead of them is Noa, who is wheeling her 18-month-old grandson, Sagi, in a baby carriage.

"The explosion caught us in the middle of the street," Eisenmann said. "What comes to me is that my mother caught the brunt of the blast, so she was able to protect me. My daughter was so small it destroyed her. I'm told the terrorist deliberately went next to the mothers and the children, wanting to kill as many as possible."
Eisenmann said she vaguely remembers the ambulance ride. Waking up in the hospital, she asked about her children and her mother. They told her that only her son was wounded, but was going to be fine.

"So I understood," Eisenmann said. When her husband, Yitzhak, found her later that evening, he confirmed the double loss. He had found his son earlier at another hospital.

"They were the two most precious things to me, my mother and my daughter," Eisenmann said. "I'm crying enough tears to fill an ocean."

Speaking of her daughter, Eisenmann said that Gal had only recently celebrated her fifth birthday. "She was a delightful girl, beautiful with blonde hair. She was very intelligent; so much so, that sometimes I could not understand what she wanted, because she made so many explanations. Her kindergarten teacher told me she contributes so much. I think they [the kindergarten class] will be very sad.

"We were good friends," said Eisenmann, explaining that they spent a lot of time talking. In the afternoons they played together; she liked filling a pool for Gal in the backyard.

"I do not know how I will have the strength to go on," Eisenmann said. But thinking of her husband, son, and family, she knows she must.

In the months before the explosion, her husband, an immigrant from Colombia, asked whether they shouldn't think of leaving. "He was afraid, it's natural to be afraid. I told him that for me to leave Israel would be like killing me, because I am so strongly connected to this country. If someone has cancer, you can not leave them at the worst moments," Eisenmann said.

Despite her head injury, and the cuts and bruises on her face and arms, Eisenmann said she pulled herself together to talk with reporters. On television she always sees stories of those wounded and killed in terror attacks, so she knows it is important to talk.

"I am making this effort maybe someone will hear us and understand that we are suffering here. I want to deliver this message so that this will be the last sacrifice," Eisenmann said.

"We want to live in peace, we want to be like normal people," her brother Ariel Alon said.
Until the attack, he was having a normal day in his home near Haifa, Ariel said. He had just returned from taking his children to the pool when his wife told him something happened in Jerusalem. His sister, Penina, and his mother were not in his mind. He feared for his other sister, Yifat, who often caught rides at that intersection.

He called his parents' home in Ofra to check. His younger brother, Ron, 22, said it was not Yifat, but Noa and Penina who might be in trouble. He thought they were near the scene of the attack. Ron said he tried their cellphones and they weren't answering.

On hearing this, Ariel said he started calling hospitals and ended up L. Greenberg Forensic Institute at Abu Kabir looking for his mother.
"I'm not a worrying person by nature. I always believed my mother was so strong, bullets could not go through her. I was sure she could beat anything, that nothing would happen to her. I feel like I'm in a dream, like it's not reality. I'm talking about it as if I'm separate from it," Ariel said. "It's two hours before the funeral and we still do not believe what happened."

After years of working as a kindergarten teacher, his mother had just gotten a job as a regional kindergarten supervisor. "I was happy that she was starting a new life at 60," Ariel said. Their last conversation revolved around a car she wanted to buy to travel among the schools in her area.

On Wednesday, shortly before the explosion, his mother organized a musical performance in Ofra called "Joy Under the Routine of Emergency." Eisenmann came with her children to help out. A video tape shows Eisenmann singing for the children. Noa can be seen clapping and having fun. Later, the video tape, which showed the clothing they wore that day, would be used to help identify his mother and niece, Gal.

Community resident Na'ama Kaplan said of Noa, "She was such a wonderful person. Her language was so rich. She was one of the first kindergarten teachers in the community, the type of person every one dreams of having as their teacher."

On Wednesday, Kaplan said "she made so many speeches and never stopped thanking all those who supported her, it was as if she knew she would not see them again. Everyone loved her."

After the program, Noa, Eisenmann, Gal, and Sagi, took a bulletproof van to French Hill. They were walking across the street to catch a bus to Eisenmann's home in Ma'aleh Adumim. "It should have passed as a normal moment, a grandmother wanting to go home with her grandchildren," Ariel said.

Now, Ariel said he has to explain to his three young children that they had lost both "their beloved grandmother and cousin. We are asking them to make pictures, to do something positive.
Yesterday afternoon, thousands attended the double funeral. Wrapped in cloth, one large body and one small one were laid out stretchers. They they were buried side-by-side in Ofra, where Noa had lived with her husband, Hanoch.

"Noa gave so much to this community that now after her death a music center will probably be dedicated in her name. Noa always said children must learn about music," Kaplan said. "It is enough, this situation. Ofra has known so much grief and sorrow in the past two years, we have already set up a number of memorials for those murdered by terrorists, and now we are once again confronted with another loss."

Wednesday's victims

The names of six of the seven victims of Wednesday night's bombing in Jerusalem's French Hill neighborhood were released for publication yesterday:

Gila Sarah Kessler, 19, of Eli

Noa Alon, 60, of Ofra

Gal Eisenmann, five, of Ma'aleh Adumim (Alon's granddaughter)

Hadassah Jungreis, 20, of Migdal Ha'emek

Shmuel Yerushalmi, 17, of Shilo

Michal Franklin, 22, of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City

Twenty people injured in the French Hill attack were still hospitalized yesterday, three of them in serious condition.

11 others injured in Tuesday's attack opposite the city's Beit Safafa neighborhood remained hospitalized yesterday, including three in serious condition.