letter to the editor
A man is lying unconscious in a pool of blood. A panic-stricken father is held at gunpoint.The Red Crescent was prevented from reaching him.Welcome to Occupied Palestine!
Israeli soldiers has snuffed the life out of another Palestinian in Jerusalem. Ahmed Erekat was the latest casualty. The 27-year-old from Abu Dis near Jerusalem was shot dead by the Israeli army at a military checkpoint between Jerusalem and Beit Lehem. He was on his way to pick up his sister and their mother from the beauty salon. It was his sister’s wedding. Now Israel has turned this Palestinian wedding into a burial.
Ahmed was shot after his car slipped and hit the concrete wall where the soldiers were standing behind. Israel claimed it was a car-ramming attack. Let’s pretend that Ahmed did intentionally attempt to harm the soldiers. That raises the question, “Why would he do it on his sister’s wedding and two weeks before he was supposed to get married?”
The military checkpoint between two Palestinian cities makes the soldiers “criminal trespassers,” thus they were a fair target under any law. Ahmed was born, lived his entire life, and died under this brutal military occupation and his killer has no roots to Palestine and whose great-grandparents had never been there.
Ahmed’s story in particular broke my heart because it was completely avoidable. There is NO excuse for denying medical help to ANYONE.
Unfortunately, the Israelis are doing to Palestinians the same thing what the Jewish people claimed happened to them in Europe during WWII. In other words, we will continue to read and hear more about needless deaths and tragic stories similar to those of Ahmed Erekat. My heart goes to his family. Allah forbid his killer/s should have any children.
Mahmoud El-Yousseph
