Falling for you in Palestine
Back in 2007 during the Hamas/Fatah civil war in Gaza there were several reports of horrific brutality inflicted by Hamas terrorists against rival Fatah terrorists. It was at that time that we became familiar with a favored form of extrajudicial killing in the Palestinian controlled territories; we call it throwing people off of roofs. The executions were so brazen that even Amnesty International was distracted for a few moments from Jews building homes to express concern. Haaretz noted at the time…
Rival Palestinian forces clashed in Gaza, with militants thrown out of high-rise buildings. In an especially grisly incident Sunday, Hamas militants kidnapped an officer in a Fatah-linked security force, took him to the roof of a 15-story apartment building and threw him off.
This week the Washington Post reported on a rash of so called “honor killings” masquerading as accidents.
As police become more vigilant, and neighbors even in small, close-knit villages such as Aqqaba speak up, the perpetrators have begun to disguise the killings as accidents, such as falling off a roof, Abu-Dayyeh said.
Thus it is for good reason that we have looked with a jaundiced eye at the unusually high number of roof related “accidents’ in areas controlled by both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority as reported in Maan News, the Palestinian News Agency. Here is a small sampling.
March 5, 2013: GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — An elderly man died on Thursday in a fall from the second floor of his home in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp.
April 4. 2013: BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A 70-year-old construction worker died on Wednesday after falling from a roof in Bethlehem, police said.
April 13, 2013: RAMALLHA (Ma’an) — Mohammad Iyad Dus, 13, died on Friday after falling off a building in Ramallah, police said.
June 25, 2013: GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — On Monday, Hamas police began investigating the death of Gaza high school leaver Huda al-Hawajri, 18, after she fell from the fourth floor of a building in the northern Gaza Strip, a spokesman said. [Ed: We understand Hamas Police were first on the scene]
June 26, 2013: GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — A 15-year-old girl died in hospital Tuesday from wounds sustained in a fall from the sixth floor of a building in Gaza, a Hamas health ministry spokesman told Ma’an.
October 2, 2013: GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — A young Palestinian man was killed on Sunday when he fell from a residential tower block where he was working in Gaza City.
February 1st 2012: HEBRON (Ma’an) — A 21-year-old man was killed on Monday after he fell into a well near Hebron, police said.
March 8th 2010: GAZA – Ma’an – An apparent fall from an unstable building, damaged during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, killed a young Gaza City man on Tuesday, officials told Ma’an. The death was the second in two days, after a woman in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis died after she fell from the seventh floor of her apartment building.
