Fuad Ahmad Abu Ghali, killed in Jenin in occupied Palestine on 27 October

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday November 21, 2002 13:10 by As do many many other ghosts

From a friend of Mary Kelly

This was written by the American woman I worked with in Jenin. the killing happenend the day I arrived there.

Fuad. It means "heart."

The ambulance was on its way to pick up a patient in the East Side of Jenin
when the dispatcher put out an urgent call that someone had been wounded
in that neighborhood. "Wounded" inevitably means "attacked by the military
power that dominates the population." House numbers are rare so the ambulance
usually finds a patient by asking people on the street to direct him to
a landmark. This time was different. At every corner of the route winding
uphill, clusters of people were pointing out the direction and urging us
to hurry. We reached the site of the attack, and stopped the ambulance about
six metres from the body which had fallen to the ground. As we jumped from
the ambulance and ran to him on the crest of the hill, three soldiers
identifiable
by their identical olive uniforms appeared running up from the other side
of the hill. Suddenly I felt it was a race, and it was important to win
it. The ambulance workers and the army reached the body simultaneously,
and I could see now that this was a young man lying motionless at our feet.
We did not yet know if there was life in him. The soldier closest to the
body seemed crazed. Hysteria overtook him as he seemed to claim his booty:
"Where is the weapon? Where is the weapon?" he yelled repeatedly in Arabic
to the stunned old man coming from the house to see what had happened, leaning
on his cane.

The soldier, with frantic eyes, quickly turned his frenzy on the medic,
holding his rifle to the unarmed man's head, and demanding that he produce
the young man's weapon. I used a calm voice, more than the logic of the
words, to try to calm his fear: "We have just come to pick up the wounded.
This is our responsibility here. We are just collecting the wounded man."
The other medic leaned down to check for signs of life. The soldier stopped
shouting but the fear and frenzy remained. He seemed shocked by what he
had done. He hunted his prey successfully only to discover that his prey
was unarmed and anything but dangerous. As the old man approached his son,
the soldier's wrath resurfaced in the form of barked commands: "Go away/Rouh!"
He would not permit the father to have a last moment with his son. The
hunter-soldier
was flanked by three comrades on their guard against other unarmed civilians
in the neighborhood. The young soldier on my left looked at the scene, and
then at me as I looked at him. He seemed to be trying to comprehend what
happened, and to be realizing that the fallen young man was not so different
from himself. The frenzied blond soldier turned around and ordered the others
to be on guard, at which point they pointed their rifles again in every
direction. No danger.

Fuad's mother came from the house and helped the medic put her son on the
stretcher before he would be separated from them by the ambulance door.
I found the sandal that had come off one foot and placed it inside the door
to the front yard that he had just come from moments ago. Fuad's father,
banned from approaching his beloved son of twenty-one years, now walked
down the street waving his cane. How could he express his shock and his
grief at what had happened so suddenly? The bullet hit Fuad's heart before
it made any sound. Fuad was stricken down first, and his father heard the
M16's supersonic bullet after the impact. One bullet. A former soldier told
me that if he felt threatened by an enemy, he would set the gun to shoot
three bullets or a continuous round, but not a single shot. It is the hunter
who chooses to shoot a single shot, usually aiming at a victim who is moving
slowly.

Did the Israeli Army sniper know that Fuad was the only one of the four
children who had normal intelligence? Did the sniper know that his prey
was named Fuad/"Heart"? Is this why he chose to target Fuad's heart? Of
course he probably did not know his name, but he did know where to find
his heart.

This mystery sniper revealed himself. Will he be taken in for questioning,
for identification by eye witnesses, for a trial in a court of law? An Israeli
soldier put on trial for murdering a Palestinian at his doorstep is unlikely
at best. How much are you raising your voice against this attack on civilization
and rule of law?

Fuad Ahmad Abu Ghali, killed in Jenin in occupied Palestine on 27 October
2002.

Fuad means "heart." If his name had meant "foot," would his murderer have
shot him in the foot? Fuad means "heart."
Fuad. It means "heart."