PRESS RELEASE
Released @ 12:00 hours GMT, 5th December, 1998
CHILD FROM RAFAH DIES DUE TO INJURIES INFLICTED
BY ISRAELI ARMY DURING INTIFADA
On December 2, 1998, Lulu Abu-Dahi, a 16-year-old from Rafah, died after almost 10 years of struggling for survival after she was injured by a gunshot wound to the head by Israeli soldiers. Lulu, then seven years old, was injured in the head on February 25, 1989, while she was standing close to her house in Rafah. She was immediately rendered unconscious and the medical report stated that she had a “right frontal bone fracture with a bullet, localized, in the left fronto-pariental region with extensive brain injury. She was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit for six weeks, during which she underwent two craniotomies for the extraction of the bullet. A brain CT-Scan done later on the 13.07. 1989 showed a diffuse hypodensity of the right hemisphere, and of the fronto-parieto-temporal lobes of the left hemisphere. She was discharged home on the 02.12.1989.” Lulu then suffered from spastic quadriplegia with deformity of both upper and lower limbs, was aphasic, disoriented, and able to communicate only with her eyes. She needed to be under supervision and nursing care 24 hours per day until her death on December 2.
The tragic story of Lulu reminds us of the heinous crimes perpetrated by the Israeli army during the intifada, and indeed, today. This once again proves the excessive and indiscriminate use of force by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilians, even in cases posing no threat to the life of those soldiers. This was certainly the case with Lulu Abu-Dahi, a small child, posing no threat to anyone.
