GAZA CITY, 10 November 2006 — Thousands of weeping Palestinians yesterday buried 18 civilians, mostly women and children, killed in Israeli artillery shelling a day earlier. “From our soul, from our blood, we will die for you our martyrs!” chanted mourners as they weaved their way through the streets of Beit Hanoun. “Revenge, revenge, oh martyrs! Oh, our beloved, the response will be in Tel Aviv,” the crowd chanted in unison, waving flags of all the Palestinian factions and occasionally setting off bursts of automatic gunfire into the air.
Some in the emotional throng collapsed in grief as a despondent father carried the lifeless body of his one-year-old baby in his arms.
The cemetery, which had been under construction, was hastily opened to accommodate the victims because no other cemetery in town had enough land to allow the victims to be buried together. All of the dead belonged to a single extended family.
The bodies arrived in a convoy of 18 ambulances, which brought them from hospital morgues through the artillery-scarred cluster of apartment buildings. Cries of “God is greater than Israel and America,” punctuated by gunshots, rang out as the bodies were brought out on stretchers. The freshly dug graves were lined up in a single row, each marked by a concrete block. A Palestinian flag fluttered over each grave. Two Israeli unmanned aircraft buzzed overhead.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said a technical failure by Israeli artillery was responsible for the massacre. “It was a technical failure of the Israeli artillery. I checked it and I verified it,” Olmert said in broadcast remarks. “This is not our policy.”
Saudi Arabia condemned the Israeli military strike and urged the international community to revive peace talks and protect Palestinians. “The Kingdom is extremely concerned about the continued attacks by the Israeli authorities against Palestinian people,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted an official source as saying. “The international community should act quickly to revive the peace process according to the Arab peace proposal and international law. There is a pressing need for an international conference attended by all parties to put an end to these atrocities,” the source added.
Bahrain also said the attack “thwarts” hopes for peace. “The recent bloody developments, including the massacre of Beit Hanoun, is a deterioration which thwarts hopes and drags the region to a dangerous decline,” Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmad Al-Khalifa told the official BNA news agency.
Arab foreign ministers planned to hold an emergency meeting next week to discuss the killings, the Arab League’s Secretary-General Amr Moussa said. “The message from Israel is clear, that it will be stopped by no one. And as such Arab countries must take up their responsibilities,” Moussa said after a meeting of Arab League representatives.
— Additional input from agencies
