BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip, 8 July 2006 — The atmosphere inside the house was hot and oppressive yesterday as women shrieked with grief around the corpse of Ahmed Abu Askar, 22, a Hamas fighter killed by Israeli troops. Abu Askar was one of nearly two dozen Palestinians killed on Thursday in the bloodiest fighting that northern Gaza has seen in four years.
Palestinian fighters bearing rifles and grenades took to the streets of Beit Lahiya in a dramatically uneven battle with Israeli troops, tanks and air power. “Everyone should do as he did and die a martyr,” said his 60-year-old father, Fuad, calmly, as relatives all around him sobbed.
Some residents fled their homes when Israeli troops began to push further into northern Gaza, but the Abu Askar family did not. “Even if the house falls on our head, we will not go. And even if they destroy all of Gaza, we will not give up the soldier,” he said.
On the day of their son’s funeral, the family living room was decorated with plastic flowers in vases and a large portrait of the late Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was killed by an Israeli air strike in 2004. Relatives pass around tea and sweets as his mourning parents remember what happened, and what might have been.
