Israeli shots kill 5 year old Palestinian boy's school dream

national | miscellaneous | news report Saturday August 17, 2002 08:30 by Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, Aug 16 - Five-year-old Ayman Fares could hardly wait for his first day of school but Israeli gunfire cut short the Palestinian boy's dreams, his mother said on Friday as his flag-wrapped body headed for an early grave.

"They stole his happiness and ours," said Sumaya Fares, weeping as she held up a pair of Ayman's jeans and a blue shirt while receiving mourners at her house at the Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, shortly before the burial.

Sumaya said she had already bought Ayman his school uniform and he was keen to begin a major new stage of his life, when shots fired by the Israeli army into his refugee camp district cut him down on Thursday.

"Ayman asked me to buy him a pencil, school bag and copy books. He was happy to be joining the school." The school year starts in early September in Palestinian territories.

Hundreds of Palestinians marched for the child's funeral on Friday, including several armed militants firing automatic rifles into the air. "Revenge is coming soon!" they cried.

Hospital officials said Ayman died from a bullet in the back of the head. Palestinian security sources said an Israeli tank approached a residential area on the edge of the camp and opened fire "without reason".

An Israeli army spokesman said Palestinians had opened fire on Israeli forces, who shot back and injured one of the men. The army said it had no information about the shooting of a boy.

The camp, flanked on two sides by a compound of Jewish settlements, has been a flashpoint for Palestinian-Israeli violence during the 22-month-old Palestinian uprising for independence in Gaza and the West Bank.

The child's grandfather, Nadid Fares, said he suffered a light bullet wound in the hand as he and a neighbour tried to get the boy's body out of the area to the hospital.

"There was no mistake. Soldiers knew where they directed their weapons," he said.

"People here live in terror. Israel tanks open fire daily against our houses and fields," added the old man, who has land close to the army-protected Jewish settlement of Gani Tal.

At least 1,503 Palestinians and 588 Israelis have been killed since the uprising began after U.S.-brokered negotiations on creating a Palestinian state stalled.

Palestinian human right groups estimate at least one-third of the Palestinian deaths have been people under the age of 18. Amnesty International said in a July 11 report said that about 60 Israeli children had been killed in Palestinian attacks.

((Jerusalem newsroom, +972 2 537 0502, jerusalem.newsroom@reuters.com))