Flanked by other relatives inside a hospital, the sister of 9-year-old Palestinian girl Aya, weeps over her dead body

By Mohammad al-Astal,  IOL Palestine Correspondent

GAZA CITY, August 31 (IslamOnline.net) – A nine-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead and five children wounded by Israeli troops in Khan Yunis refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip late Saturday, August 30.

Aaya Mahmmoud Fayaad was hit by bullets fired from an Israeli observation post on the edge of the Neve Dkalim settlement which lies very close to the camp.  

Fayaad was rushed to Naser hospital with bullets riddling her chest and neck.

Mohammad Hammad, 14, Nagah Allam, 12, Naser Abul Kheir, 12, Abdullah Abu Amra 12, Hanin Shakoura, 12, and Nabil al-Ghalban, 24 were all wounded in the unbridled Israeli attack.

Fayaad'd death was like a bombshell to her mother. She went into a coma and was rushed to a nearby hospital. Now she is all by herself after her son died three years ago.

"Aya was playing around and was happy after I bought her the uniform of the new school year...She went to have fun with her friends, but did not come back," the bereaved mother told IslamOnline.net.

"The (Israeli) criminals killed this innocent flower-like girl," she added as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

Hassan Hassanin, an eyewitness, said: "Fayaad was present at the Austrian district when the Israeli troops opened their fire randomly."

"The Israelis killed her while she was buying chips from a nearby shop," he added.

Her death brings the total of people killed since the start of the Palestinian Intifada against the Israeli occupation in September 2000 to 3,440, including 2,579 Palestinians and 800 Israelis, according to an AFP count.

On Saturday, Israeli Apache helicopters fired four missiles at a car in al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing two members of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and wounding a third.

Shots were exchanged in Jenin on Saturday after some 15 Israeli military vehicles pushed into the northern West Bank to arrest a Palestinian wanted by Israel, Palestinian security sources said.

Also on Saturday, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles stormed the West Bank village of al-Yamoun, near Jenin, and opened fire randomly on Palestinian houses.

Sources with the Israeli Al-Ramla prison further said that two Palestinian prisoners, Moussa Dawdin and Ahmad al-Barghouthi, are suffering from kidney failure after they have gone on a hunger strike for two months in a row.

‘Shooting’

Meanwhile, the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas said it was behind the shooting of an Israeli truck driver in the southern Gaza Strip early Sunday.

The shooting near the Jewish settlement of Rafah Yam was conducted "in the frame of our revenge operations," the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement faxed to AFP.

The shooting comes after a series of Israeli raids on Hamas activists, including the attack on Saturday which killed two Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigade members.

The man was seriously wounded when shots were fired at the Jewish settlement of Rafah Yam near the border with Egypt, Israeli military sources said. He is being treated at Soroka hospital in Beersheba in the Negev desert.

The source also said the Israeli army had arrested five Palestinian activists overnight in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.