HTML clipboard
Press Release
Three Palestinian civilians, including two children, killed in Rafah
Ref: 52/2002
Date: 7 April 2002
Whilst Israeli occupation forces maintained their full-scale offensive in the West Bank cities, Israeli troops also subjected a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern Gaza strip to indiscriminate heavy machine gun fire yesterday. Three Palestinian civilians, including two children, were killed and a number of civilians were wounded in the attack, which occurred for no apparent reason.
At approximately 16:00 on Saturday, 6 April, Israeli occupation forces began firing on Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in the west of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip without any clashes or violence reported in the area at the time. The shooting lasting until 18:30. PCHR’s field worker in Rafah reported that the Israeli fire came from three directions: from three Israeli heavy military vehicles positioned at the border with Egypt; from the al-Mawasi roadblock, west of Tal al-Sultan neighborhood; and from a military location in Tel Zo’rob area at the Egyptian border. Three Palestinian civilians, including two children, were killed:
Sumaiah Najeh ‘Abdulhadi Hassan, 6, was killed by a live bullet in the head while she was traveling in a civilian car with her pregnant mother, Manar Samih Rashid al-Qiq, 26, and her grandfather, Samih Rashid al-Qiq, 51, on their way from the centre of Rafah to Tel al-Sultan neighborhood.
Salwa Khaled Dahliz, 10, was killed by a heavy caliber bullet in the head while she was near her family’s house, opposite to the Israeli military location in Tal Zo’rob area.
Shadi Fawzi Abu Ghali, 20, was killed by a live bullet in the head while he was in the street. A number of houses in the neighborhood were severely damaged.
Rafah refugee camp is regularly subject to intense and indiscriminate shooting by Israeli forces stationed on the border between the Gaza strip and Egypt. Dozens of Palestinian civilians in Rafah, including a number of children, have been killed by indiscriminate shelling by Israeli forces during the al-Aqsa Intifada. Most recently, Israeli forces killed Hamada Akram al-Seiqali, 14, in Rafah on 1 April, also in the absence of clashes or other violence.
PCHR is deeply concerned by ongoing and systematic human rights violations perpetrated by Israeli occupation forces against Palestinian civilians and property in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). PCHR reiterates its call for the international community to immediately take concrete steps to ensure Israel’s respect for the Fourth Geneva Convention in the OPT, and provide international protection for Palestinian civilians.
