Terrorism and Collective Punishment

Bulletin on Suicide Bombing

If Americans Knew
April 17, 2006

On Monday, April 17th, a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv killed nine Israelis, the deadliest such bombing in two years. The media provided graphic information on this bombing but omitted considerable information of relevance:

In the last two and a half weeks alone Israeli forces have killed at least 26 Palestinians – at least 5 of them children – and injured 161 Palestinian men, women and children. A college student lost her right eye today after being shot by an Israeli sniper last week.

There have been 369 raids by Israeli forces, mostly into the West Bank. Gaza has undergone sustained shelling by Israeli forces and continued closures, resulting in increasing lack of food and medical supplies. According to UN reports, between March 30 and April 12th, Israeli forces launched 2300 artillery and tank shells and 34 missiles into Gaza.

Since the current Palestinian uprising against Israeli military occupation and confiscation of Palestinian land began in fall 2000, approximately 3,863 Palestinians and 1,084 Israelis and have been killed. Among these have been approximately 720 Palestinian children and 124 Israeli children.

Today, in separate actions, several Palestinian youths were shot, one in the neck. Israeli forces are continuing their ongoing invasions of Nablus and other West Bank cities.

Today is Palestinian Prisoners Day. 9,400 Palestinian men, women, and children are in prison. According to numerous human rights reports, Palestinian prisoners are frequently tortured. Defense for Children International reports that 4,000 Palestinian children have been arrested in the past five years, 400 of them currently in prison. They report that the arrests are increasing.

Additional Information from Defense for Children International:

According to DCI: "The process of arrest and detention of Palestinian children is a process of systematic abuse and mistreatment which flouts international legal standards and denies the basic human rights of detainees first as children and secondly as prisoners...[children are] handcuffed and blindfolded, humiliated and threatened and often beaten and kicked from the moment they are arrested up to and often throughout their interrogation and detention. They are deprived of sleep, food and access to the bathroom until so-called confessions are coerced out of them..."

At 5.30pm on Monday 10 April 2006, at least six artillery shells fired by the Israeli military fell on the family house of Mohammed Rabe'eya Ghaban in Beit Lahiya, in the north of the Gaza Strip. Shrapnel from the shells pierced the skull of Mohammed's eight-year old daughter Hadeel, killing her instantly. The shelling also resulted in the injury of eight other family members, including Hadeel's brothers and sisters:

Rawan Ghaban 1 and a half years old
Rana Ghaban 3 years old
Munir Ghaban 4 years old
Amneh Ghaban 9 years old
Ghassan Ghaban 11 years old
Bassam Ghaban 15 years old
Tahrir Ghaban 17 years old

The children's mother, 35-year old Sofia, was the eighth family member wounded in the attack.

Several neighbours were also injured including:

Jaqueline Mo'ein Maarouf 11 years old
Mariam Maher Al-'Assi 15 years old

Source Information

• The Palestinian Monitoring Group has daily reports on all deaths, injuries, attacks, etc. We got our numbers on recent deaths and injuries by counting these up (from the NAD-PLO website). The injuries are a little confusing at first, because you actually have to add together the numbers for "injuries" and "physical assaults" to get the total of injuries. - http://www.nad-plo.org/main.php?view=pmg_daily-reports
• Defence for Children International, Palestine section, has numerous excellent reports on children – following are some of the specific ones we used for this bulletin:
• http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?DocId=484&CategoryId=1
• http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?DocId=483&CategoryId=1
• The numbers on artillery shells and missiles came from http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/ochaSR_Gaza120406.pdf
• UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, oPt: www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/
• The overall stats for conflict deaths we have on our website. When you click on the number it takes you to the primary source.
• Other information, eg the 15-year-old in prison, came from the International Middle East Media Center: www.imemc.org