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Last update - 21:07 31/01/2005

IDF says schoolgirl was probably killed by Palestinian gunfire

By Arnon Regular and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and Agencies

Israel Defense Forces officials said Monday that the fatal shooting of a Palestinian schoolgirl in a Gaza refugee camp appeared to be caused by Palestinian gunfire.

The IDF has not yet, however, ruled out the possibility that 10-year-old Noran Deeb had been hit by Israeli gunfire.

"According to our examination, the girl apparently was not shot by Israeli army gunfire," the military spokesman's office said.

A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a preliminary investigation had found a "high likelihood" that the girl was hit by Palestinian gunfire. Israel Radio quoted Israeli sources as saying that Palestinian revelers returning from Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca had been shooting into the air in the area. Residents denied the fact.

Palestinian and United Nations officials said earlier Monday that Deeb was killed by IDF gunfire as she was walking into a UN school in the southern Gaza Strip. But UN officials later said that they could not definitively identify the source of the gunfire, although all signs pointed to the Israelis.

"The only firing that took place at that time in the entire Rafah area came from the so-called Salah Adin [Saladin] IDF observation post," about 800 meters away from the school, said Johan Eriksson, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which administers the school.

The IDF is working with the Palestinians to carry out a joint investigation of the report, military sources said. They also said no gunfire was reported near the school, located in the Rafah refugee camp.

The army is looking into the incident and has asked the Palestinian Authority to participate in a joint investigation into the girl's death.

Doctors at Rafah hospital, where Noran Deeb was pronounced dead, said she was shot in the head.

The Palestinians also said a 7-year-old Palestinian girl was wounded in the hand.

Militants fired eight mortar shells at the Gaza settlement bloc of Gush Katif several hours after the incident, causing no injuries. The IDF said two mortars had landed in the Neveh Dekalim settlement, causing damage to one home. Hamas said the mortar fire was in response to the girl's death.

"Zionist attacks did not stop and therefore resistance will continue," said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing. "As long as the enemy does not stop, then firing of mortar bombs will continue."

In a separate event, an IDF soldier suffered light wounds when he was hit by shrapnel from a roadside bomb thrown at troops near Bethlehem. The soldier received medical attention at the site of the attack.

Also in Gaza on Monday, Palestinians opened fire on hothouses belonging to the Morag settlement in the southern Strip, and IDF troops discovered and safely defused a 50-kilogram explosive device south of Kissufim. There were no injuries in either incident.

Palestinian sources said Deeb was lining up with classmates to enter their school in the morning when she was shot by gunfire from the army's Termit post, some 900 meters away.

"I was with the other teachers outside," said the deputy principal, Mariam Abu Shamala. "The children were in line, waiting to go into their rooms. Suddenly, we heard screaming. So I ran toward the children, and saw the girl on the ground and covered with blood."

Paul McCann, a spokesman for UNRWA, confirmed Monday's shooting. "This is the fifth occasion in which children in our schools have been hurt," he said. Two girls were killed in separate shootings last fall as they sat inside their classrooms. McCann also said a student has been blinded and another wounded in the throat in recent shootings.

The incident was the second shooting in the area in two days, testing an informal cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants. On Sunday, IDF troops killed a 65-year-old man who entered an unauthorized area near an army post.

Monday's shooting also comes a few days after Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon issued new directives to the IDF suspending offensive activity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to enable the Palestinian Authority's security forces to deploy to combat terrorism.

On Friday, Ya'alon imposed a freeze on all offensive operations in Gaza, where Palestinians have resumed responsibility for security in areas under their control. In the West Bank, arrest operations against active terror cells will require Ya'alon's personal approval.

The Palestinians deployed thousands of police in Gaza last week in an effort to maintain calm throughout the volatile coastal area. As part of that effort, hundreds of officers took up positions in Rafah, a frequent flashpoint of fighting located along the border with Egypt, last weekend.

Human Rights

Israeli forces kill another Palestinian girl inside school

Report, PCHR, 31 January 2005



PCHR strongly condemns the latest attack committed by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) today, when they opened fire at an elementary school in Rafah, Killing an 11-year-old schoolchild and injuring a second one when the two were in the schoolyard.  PCHR is increasingly concerned for attacks by IOF on educational institutions, threatening the lives and safety of children, even in places where full protection is supposed to be offered to them in all circumstances. This latest attacks refutes Israeli official claims regarding commitment to a ceasefire according to ongoing understandings with the Palestinian side. 

According to preliminary investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 12:00 on Monday, 31 January 2005, IOF positioned at the Egyptian border, south of Rafah, opened fire at an UNRWA elementary school in al-Brazil neighborhood, nearly 600 meters away from the border. Two Palestinian schoolchildren were wounded: 11-year-old Nouran Eyad Deeb was seriously wounded by a live bullet in the head; and 8-year-old 'Aaesha 'Essam al-Khatib, was wounded by a live bullet in the right hand, while the two were about to enter their classrooms.  The two children were evacuated to Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, but the first child died a few minutes later.  According to a teacher at school, the area was completely quiet when IOF opened fire which absolutely terrified the schoolchildren. 

Palestinian educational institutions have been frequently attacked by IOF, and PCHR has documented dozens of such attacks, which injured dozens of schoolchildren while they were at school.  In two of such attacks in September and October 2004, 2 schoolchildren were killed by IOF in Khan Yunis refugee camp, when the two were sitting on their desks.

PCHR is deeply concerned for such grave breaches of international law and international humanitarian law perpetrated by IOF against Palestinian children and their right to life, security and physical integrity.  PCHR calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, to immediately intervene to stop Israeli attacks that have affected the lives, security and physical integrity of Palestinian civilians, and to provide protection for these civilians.  PCHR calls also upon international organizations, especially UNESCO and UNICEF, to immediately intervene to sop Israeli violations of the right of Palestinian children to education, which is ensured by international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

Related Links

· Israeli troops kill Palestinian girl in the Gaza Strip, Khalid Amayreh (26 January 2005)

· Parents petition Israeli High Court over daughter killed by Israeli army, PCATI (23 January 2005)

· Israeli rights group: "Trigger-happy attitude among Israeli soldiers", B'Tselem (24 November 2004)

· Iman: Executing another child in Rafah, Omar Barghouti (29 October 2004)

· BY TOPIC: Children





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Last update - 04:10 01/02/2005

Gaza girl killed by gunfire while at school

By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent

The fragile quiet that has reigned in Gaza for nearly two weeks was threatened Monday for the first time, when a 10-year-old Palestinian girl was killed in Rafah under still undetermined circumstances, and Hamas, on the assumption that the girl was killed by Israel Defense Forces gunfire, retaliated with a barrage of nine mortars into Gush Katif, causing some damage but no injuries.

The 4 P.M. Rafah shooting killed Nuran Dib, who was struck in the head by a bullet. A second child, a 7-year-old girl, was hit in the shoulder. Both girls were at the UNRWA school at the time, and since the school is directly opposite and about 500 meters from the IDF's Termit outpost on the Philadelphi corridor, the immediate assumption on the Palestinian side was that troops had fired.

But an IDF inquiry found that no Israeli troops in the area had fired their weapons and suspicions fell on Palestinians who were firing guns in celebration of heir successful pilgrimage to Mecca, as stray bullets fired in the air could have landed on the Rafah schoolyard where the girls were playing. Palestinian Authority forces evaded an Israeli offer to conduct a joint inquiry, and the issue was expected to top the agenda at a meeting Monday night between Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and the PA's Mohammad Dahlan.

"According to our examination, the girl apparently was not shot by Israeli army gunfire," the military spokesman's office said.

But Hamas was not interested in explanations about trajectories and soon after the girl's burial, mortars began landing in Gush Katif. One hit the roof of a house, and crashed through the kitchen ceiling. But no one was in the room at the time. There were also gunshots at the greenhouses in Morag. All together, nine mortar shells landed in the settlement-bloc on Monday.

In another Gaza development, IDF soldiers uncovered a 50-kilo land mine hidden south of the Kissufim junction in southern Gaza.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, a Popular Front activist, Hisham Ka'abi, was charged in the Samaria Military Court with orchestrating a suicide bombing that killed three and wounded more than 50 in Tel Aviv's Carmel Market last November. He is also accused of participating in a series of shooting attacks on Israeli cars on the Trans-Samaria Highway last year.