Palestinian School Girl Killed on Her Way to School in Rafah

Press Release, Palestine Monitor, 5 October 2004

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) kill, IN COLD BLOOD, a 13 year old Palestinian school girl from the Yebna refugee camp. Iman Sameer Al-Hams was shot and killed by 20 live bullets while she was on her way to an UNRWA school in the Gaza strip city of Rafah, near the Palestinian-Egyptian borders.

According to eye witnesses, the area was quiet at the time. Iman was shot at from an Israeli army observation tower in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood of the town of Rafah, on the border with Egypt. Iman died instantly.

Israeli occupation soldiers were at a close distance to the girl and could see that she was wearing her school uniform.

Dr Ali Musa, the head of Abu Yousef An-Najar hospital in the Gaza Strip, said that “the girl’s body was riddled with bullets from head to toe, including 5 bullets in the head”.

Palestinian children are not safe from Israeli bullets be it at their homes, in the street, or even at UN- schools. On September 27, 2004, Raged Adnan al-Assar died of the wounds she had sustained when she was shot by an Israeli soldier as she sat at her desk at the UNRWA Elementary School in Khan Younis on September 7, 2004 .

There have been several reports that the Israeli snipers frequently shoot Palestinian civilians to prove their marksmanship. This might explain why 200 Palestinian children were shot in the head and why 84% of Palestinian civilians, killed by the IOF, were shot in the upper part of the body.

As Israel’s so-called “Days of Penitence” operation has entered its seventh day, the total number of Palestinians killed has reached at least 80, most of them are civilians.

In another incident, Israeli troops assassinated two Palestinians in a raid by undercover Israeli unit in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Monday, witnesses and media reports said.

Palestinian security sources said that undercover and regular Israeli troops ambushed two men in a shop in the Ramallah marketplace, and that both men (28 and 35 year old) were killed.