By
ASSOCIATED PRESS GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip.
Suicide
bomber's mother: "Our children are in heaven, their children are
in hell."
In
a farewell videotape before Mahmoud el Abed embarked on a suicidal attack, he
sat holding hands with his mother, who prayed for him to become a
"martyr" as she conferred her blessing. "May
every bullet hit its target," she said.
When
news arrived a day later that her son had died in an attack that killed two Israeli soldiers, Naima el Abed celebrated by
ululating and clapping her hands,
her friends said.
Her
son, age 19, was one of several armed Palestinians who launched a shooting
attack against the Israeli community of Dugit in the northern Gaza Strip late
Saturday night - one of several attempted attacks on Israeli targets in Gaza
over the weekend. The assailants did not succeed in infiltrating Dugit,
home to several dozen Jewish families, but the gunbattle also wounded four
Israeli soldiers.
The
radical Islamic group Hamas today claimed responsibility for the assault.
"Our
children are in heaven, their children are in hell," Naima el Abed said
Sunday at her son's funeral.
In
a farewell video that Palestinian suicide bombers and gunmen often make before
attacks, Mahmoud el Abed, a slight man with a wispy mustache, urges his friends
to pray for him to obtain a place in paradise.
Many
Muslims believe that dying in an attack against Israel makes them a
"martyr" and will earn them a place in paradise and the ability to
nominate friends and family to join them.
The
attackers regularly make videos of themselves before an attack, but the
inclusion of Mahmoud el Abed's mother was unusual.
The
two sit side by side in white plastic chairs. As Mahmoud el Abed leans toward
his mother and tells her he is about to embark on a "martyrdom"
operation, she reaches up and puts her arm around him.
"This
is the best day of my life. God willing, you will become a martyr and you will
be successful. May every bullet hit its target," Naima el Abed tells her
son in the video.
They
laughed and joked in the recording, as the son handed his mother an automatic
rifle and placed a green Hamas band on her head. They posed for the camera
together holding rifles, and Naima el Abed beseeched other Palestinian mothers
to encourage their children to follow suit.
She
next saw her son at his funeral today.
He
was "very dear to me, he is my heart," she said.
Masked
gunmen fired in the air of their Gaza neighborhood and promised that attacks on
Israelis would continue.
Palestinians
carried el Abed's body into his modest home and laid him on the floor. His
mother knelt beside his body and kissed him. She never cried.
All
around her were women, clapping and celebrating his death, while his father
Hassan quietly received congratulations. Several of their nine other children
handed out candy to visitors.
"I
wish all my children would be like him and carry out operations like that,"
she said at the funeral. "My message to the Israeli people is that they
should leave this land for the sake of their children."
Naima
el Abed said she wished she could carry out an operation like her son, but Hamas
would not allow it.
While
the appearance of a mother in her son's farewell video was rare, it was not
unprecedented.
Mariam
Farhat gave her son Mohammed her blessing to carry out an attack on a Jewish
settlement and told a camera she wished she had a hundred sons like him.
Farhat,
19, broke into a study hall at a nearby Jewish settlement in Gaza in March and
armed with grenades and automatic rifles killed five Israeli students and
wounded 23 people before being shot dead himself. "When I see all the Jews
in Palestine killed, that will be enough for me," his mother said on
camera. "I wish he will kill as many as he can, so they will be
scared."
______________________________________________________________________________
PALESTINIAN
CHILDREN WEARING 'MARTYR NECKLACES'
Palestinian
children have traded in their Pokemon cards for a new craze:
necklaces
with pictures of "martyrs"
of the Palestinian uprising against
Israeli
occupation. "I used to have plenty of Pokémons - my school bag was
half
full of them," 140year-old Saleh Attiti said. "I threw them all away.
They're
not important now. The pictures of martyrs are important. They're
our
idols."