GAZA CITY, 12 December 2006 — Hostility between Palestinian groups touched a new low yesterday when gunmen killed three schoolchildren of a senior intelligence officer in a drive-by shooting. The children, between the ages of six and nine, were going to school when their car came under a hail of gunfire from two vehicles along a street crowded with schoolchildren.
The driver of the car was also killed while four other children and the intelligence officer’s bodyguard were wounded in the attack on Palestine Street, which is lined with nine schools. The attack sent children running for cover. Some dropped to the ground, others fled in panic. There was no claim of responsibility for the shooting that left the car riddled with bullets and the children’s schoolbags and a small plastic bag with a sandwich covered in blood.
The car was soaked in blood. A children’s backpack, emblazoned with cartoon characters and the word “Friend,” lay on the front seat, covered in blood. Another schoolbag was in the back. “I have no words. Words stop at the extent of this crime,” the children’s father, Bahaa Baloushe, said. “I am a father who has lost his children.”
The dead children were identified as Salam Baloushe, 6, Ahmed Baloushe, 7, and Osama Baloushe, 9. The driver of the car was Mamoud Al-Habeel, 25.
Describing the early-morning attack, Fadwa Nablus, 12, who had been walking to school with her nine-year-old brother, said: “We saw fire coming from one car. We started screaming and children started running.”
Senior officials in the Mokhabarat, or intelligence service, which is loyal to the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, blamed the rival group Hamas for the shooting. Baloushe, a Fatah member, had been a leading interrogator of Hamas activists a decade ago.
Hamas, however, denied involvement and denounced the bloodshed.
While dozens have been killed in Gaza’ escalating lawlessness since Hamas defeated Fatah in January parliamentary elections, the death of the children was especially shocking and was likely to trigger widespread confrontations at a time Hamas and Fatah were at loggerheads over the creation of a national unity government.
In response to the attack, Fatah’s parliamentary faction issued a statement calling on Abbas to dismiss the Hamas government, “which is pushing us with its policies and programs to civil war.”
Abdel Karim Kahlout, Gaza’s mufti, called for the death sentence against the killers. “I ask the rulers to carry out an execution against the killers. No punishment is acceptable but execution,” he said.
At midday, thousands of angry Fatah supporters joined a mass funeral procession for the children that snaked through the streets of Gaza City. Hundreds of Fatah security officers were in the crowd, firing their rifles in the air. Fatah activists burned tires, blocked roads and shut down the city’s commercial market in protest.
“This is an ugly and inhuman crime perpetrated by a bunch of lowlifes,” Abbas said at his West Bank office in Ramallah. “We condemn it vehemently.”
Baloushe’s wife, Linda, 33, was dressed in black as she received mourners at their house. She choked back tears when she looked at pictures of her sons. She said her husband was deeply attached to his sons. “Whoever did this knew how to get to him,” she said.
The three dead children, still wearing their school uniforms, were carried in the arms of family members to a mosque for funeral prayers. One boy had 10 bullet holes in his head. The bodies were then wrapped in Fatah flags and taken to a cemetery. The nearby headquarters of Hamas’ militia remained empty during the ceremony. Officials said they wanted to avoid further tensions.
Mohammed Dahlan, a top Fatah official and Gaza strongman, cried during the funeral ceremony. “This is not an assassination, it’s a massacre,” he later told reporters, promising to bring the killers to justice. “We are not pointing fingers at anyone. But the criminals behind dozens of previous crimes are known, and the (Hamas-led) Interior Ministry has not acted against them.”
The Interior Ministry promised a speedy investigation.
— Additional input from agencies
