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Palestinians Bury Ali, The Latest "Child Martyr"
KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip, June 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A white shroud revealing only a blood-drained face, a father's face streaming with tears as he kissed for the last time the lifeless little body placed in a small earth grave: 12-year-old Ali Abu Shawish joined on Monday the "child martyrs" of the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising against the Israeli occupation.
The sound of Ali's father sobbing was punctuated by cries for vengeance and the fierce echo of Kalashnikovs firing into the sky at Ali's funeral in the southern Gaza Strip's Khan Yunis refugee camp.
Ali, 12, was killed Sunday during an exchange of fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian gunmen at the refugee camp.
The Israeli army said in a statement that it opened fire after "dozens of Palestinians attacked the (nearby) Gush Katif settlement bloc with stones and Molotov cocktails," and shot at the demonstrators' legs.
At the funeral, dominated by the presence of Palestinian factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad, angry young men brandished Palestinian flags: green for Hamas, black for Islamic Jihad and yellow for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
Some of Ali's friends remembered Ali throwing his last stone at Israeli soldiers Sunday before bullets riddled his body.
They bragged they were all ready to join him in the ranks of martyrs, whose faces plaster photos in the refugee camp.
On the same day Ali died, another 12-year-old Palestinian, Soliman Al-Masri, was buried after being shot Saturday in a clash between Palestinians, split over the then four-day-old U.S. brokered ceasefire between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
But during Ali's funeral, there was no talk of a truce, only the desire to carry on the eight-and-a-half month Intifada. Ali's aunt, Najwa Mohareb, said her nephew had wanted to die a soldier in the fight against Israeli occupation.
"He did not pass a day without saying, 'I want to become a martyr. I want to avenge my cousin Mohanad', who was killed by the Israelis," she said.
Pictures of Ali were already pasted throughout the camp, even in car windows, with the inscription: "Those who die in the defense of Islam will be offered eternal life."
But even amid the feverish pitch of Palestinian songs blaring from speakers strapped atop cars, some children expressed fear of facing the frontlines to throw stones again.
"I am afraid to go back in front of the soldiers," said Usman Fasfus, 12, whose arm was in a sling after a bullet grazed him as he threw stones at Israelis on Friday.
Sporadic post-ceasefire violence has continued as Palestinian and Israeli leaders met Monday in Tel Aviv under United States auspices in a bid to work out a timetable for consolidating the ceasefire, Israeli public television reported.
"The Israeli authorities stressed to their Palestinian counterparts that this meeting is being held while Palestinian attacks are as serious and numerous as before" a U.S. plan to consolidate the ceasefire came into effect June 13.
The two sides met after Israel insisted that the talks cover the "violations", while the Palestinians said the meeting must be devoted to setting a timetable for lifting the blockade on the Palestinian territories.
Also on Monday, two Israeli settlers died and two were injured in three separate shooting attacks in the West Bank Monday, while a Palestinian shot by Israeli troops the day before also died of his wounds.
One of the settlers died in hospital after he was hit by Palestinian gunfire as he was driving in the West Bank, an army source said.
The settler, aged 35, whose identity was not given, was hit in the neck by a Palestinian firing from a hill overlooking the Jewish settlement of Einav near the autonomous Palestinian town of Tulkarem, said the source.
Meanwhile, a young Palestinian wounded by Israeli fire in the southern Gaza Strip the previous day, died of his wounds Monday, according to a hospital source.
Adel Hussein Kanaan, 16, was wounded in a clash between Israeli soldiers and armed Palestinians in the al-Amal section of the Khan Yunis refugee camp.
The latest death brings to 616 the number of people killed in the Palestinian territories and in Israel since the start of the Intifada on September 28: 485 Palestinians, 112 Israelis, 13 Arab Israelis and six Europeans.
To provide aid to the Palestinians who have suffered the brunt of the violence and economic sanctions, the Yemeni parliament decided Monday to make a two million dollar gift to the Palestinians in support of the Intifada, coinciding with the visit to Sana'a of Palestinian National Council speaker Salim Zaanun.
"The gift of 30 million riyals (around two million dollars) has been included in the Yemeni parliament's budget to come to the aid of the Palestinian uprising in the (Israeli) occupied territories," a parliamentary source said.
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