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<td valign="top" width="40%">-------- Original Message
--------<br>
<br>
Friends,<br>
Here's a note re Salam Salah who is now living in
Massachusetts with two sons. You may recall, Salam's
husband, a professor, and her son Mohammad were gunned down
in Nabulus in 2005. It's been hard for her, but at she
seems to be adjusting to life in the USA and has found a
community of support.<br>
<br>
Genevieve<br>
--------------<br>
<br>
Dear friends,<br>
This message is both a reminder of our fundraiser next <b>Saturday
9/14</b> and a note about getting your last minute
tickets.<br>
There are a few tickets left and given the time left until
next Saturday I would like to advise you to simply sending
me an email to <a href="mailto:marwanelmasri@yahoo.com">marwanelmasri@yahoo.com</a>
requesting your tickets instead of sending checks at this
time. You can then pay at the door.<br>
<br>
<h1><b>Healing Children Changing Lives</b></h1>
<p><b>Sat, 9/14</b><br>
</p>
<br>
<b>Dinner begins at 7PM, <br>
Speaker Reception at 6PM</b><br>
TO RESERVE TICKETS PLEASE EMAIL: <a
href="mailto:marwanelmasri@yahoo.com">marwanelmasri@yahoo.com</a><br>
<br>
<b>FREE PARKING </b><br>
<br>
BOSTON MARRIOTT NEWTON 2345 COMMONWEALTH AVE. NEWTON MA
02466 SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2013<br>
<br>
If you have already reserved tickets but have not actually
paid for them yet, please know that your tickets have been
ordered with the hotel and we are counting on your payment
at the door. <br>
<br>
Thank you very much for your support, and I look forward to
seeing you at the event.<br>
Marwan<br>
<br>
<br>
<a href="mailto:BOSTON@PCRF.NET">BOSTON@PCRF.NET</a>
<a href="http://WWW.PCRF.NET">PCRF.NET</a> [Palestine
Children's Relief Fund]<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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<h1><a href="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/printer185"><font
class="articletitle">Death in a Cemetery</font></a></h1>
<font class="articlebyline">Gideon Levy, <i>Haaretz
Newspaper,</i> 23 July 2004</font><br>
<br>
<font class="bodytext">How many of us can imagine the night
of horror that the Salah family endured? To lie on the
floor of the living room for what seemed an eternity,
embracing as one being, trembling with fear as the house
was blasted with bullets and missiles; to watch the
sniper's laser ray doing its dance of death across the
apartment, searching out its victims; to see the missiles
slamming into the walls of the house, missile after
missile, as though an earthquake had struck; to get to
their feet in the dark following the order to evacuate the
building before it was demolished; to try to open the
front door and discover that it had been twisted out of
shape by the gunfire and couldn't be opened; to open a
window and try to shout to the snipers, in the dark of the
night, that the door was jammed; to see the father of the
family collapse from a bullet fired into his neck by a
sniper; to see the son collapse a few minutes later from a
bullet in his cheek fired by a sniper; to watch, helpless,
as your son lies on the floor, the life ebbing out of him,
next to his dead father, and to cry for help, but to find
that the soldiers will not allow anyone to enter; then to
undergo an interrogation and humiliation; and to discover
that the entire contents of the house had been destroyed.
<br>
<br>
</font><font class="bodytext"><img style="width: 148px;
height: 175px;" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image"
src="cid:part6.02080300.09040603@mynas.com" width="150"
height="177" hspace="10" align="right">That was the
night of horror of the Salah family: the father, <b>Prof.
Khaled Salah, 51 at his death</b>, founder of the
Department of Electrical Engineering at An-Najah
University in Nablus; his wife, <b>Salam</b>, and their
three children, Diana, 23, Mohammed, 16, and Ali, 11, all
of whom were at home that night. Fortunately for the
firstborn, Amer, he was in Boston, where he is an
engineering student. It was a night of horror on which the
father, possessor of a Ph.D. from the University of
California, Davis, and a member of the Israeli-Palestinian
Peace Committee at An-Najah, was killed, along with his
son, Mohammed, a boy who loved soccer and dreamed of
becoming a pharmacist, who lay dying on the floor for lack
of medical treatment, which the soldiers denied him.<br>
<br>
Maybe you saw them. Two years ago, during the Mondial (the
World Cup of soccer), Channel 2 News correspondent Itai
Engel broadcast a report of his impressions from a house
in Nablus where he had watched the game between Brazil and
Turkey as a guest of the Salah family. Engel was
flabbergasted this week when told what had happened to the
family that hosted him. The boy too? The boy, too. He said
he had been charmed by them, by the father and his son,
both of them avid soccer fans. When asked about the
possibility of a game between Israel and Palestine, Khaled
consulted with Mohammed and then replied, "We're better,
but it'll be best if you win, because we'll be in for it
if we beat you." They talked about peace and about soccer.<br>
<br>
Salam, the widow and bereaved mother, a survivor of that
night, found it difficult this week to remember the
television piece and her loved ones' remarks about peace.
It's important for her that the Israelis know that Khaled
was a man of peace. Between fits of crying, still in
shock, it's important for her to tell the Israelis in
detail what happened in the pre-dawn hours of July 6 in
her home on Saka Street, in Nablus.<br>
<br>
PHOTO: view from the family's balcony </font><br>
(Photo: Genevieve Cora Fraser)<font class="bodytext"><img
style="width: 481px; height: 334px;" alt=""
typeof="foaf:Image"
src="cid:part7.08090405.08050408@mynas.com" width="483"
height="335"><br>
<br>
Salam Salah got home from a wedding in the city a little
before midnight. Only she and Diana had attended the
family wedding. Mohammed stayed home with his father,
watching television and waiting for the candies his mother
would bring from the party. Mohammed was very fond of the
white and pink wedding sweets stuffed with walnuts. No one
could have imagined that those would be the last candies
he would ever eat. Diana, who, like her brother Amer, was
born in California - both are American citizens - holds a
degree in business administration from An-Najah. She, too,
was getting ready for her own wedding, a large-scale
affair that was set for next month.<br>
<br>
They soon went to sleep. Mohammed was an anxiety-ridden
boy. Born into the first intifada in the tough city of
Nablus, reaching adolescence as the second intifada
erupted, he was a habitual nail-biter. He sometimes got
nosebleeds, when the tension in Nablus rose. Salam says it
might have been because they overprotected the boy.<br>
<br>
At a quarter to two they woke up in a fright to the sound
of a powerful blast. Salam and Khaled leaped out of bed
and looked out the window of their bedroom. They saw
nothing. From the window of Diana's room they spotted dark
forms of soldiers surrounding the building. It was only
from the kitchen window that the full picture became
clear. "It's like hell," Khaled whispered to his wife. The
whole area was swarming with snipers, tanks, helicopters
and other army forces that had come to apprehend or
liquidate wanted individuals who were probably hiding in
the ground-floor apartment.<br>
<br>
Their building is situated high on Saka Street, wedged on
the hillside, with Nablus spread out below. The residences
in the building are spacious. Two neighbors are
physicians, and Sami Aaker, the owner of a sewing factory
that produces garments for Israeli fashion houses is
another neighbor. Aaker's home now lies in ruins, like
that of the Salah family.<br>
<br>
Khaled herded the children into the living room and they
lay on the floor, folded into one another, five members of
a family like one body. From time to time, another missile
or shell hit the apartment and exploded, casting a lurid
light, like fireworks. Occasionally searchlights or the
snipers' red laser rays lit up the darkened living room.
The electricity came and went. The door of the
refrigerator, damaged along with everything else in the
house, opened wide and the yellow light supplied a bit of
illumination. Salam and Khaled called everyone they could
think of on Mohammed's mobile phone, trying to find out
what was happening. The shooting didn't stop for a second,
and their home was being gradually destroyed. They called
relatives, asking them to do something, fast.<br>
<br>
One relative called the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, but
even the long arm of all-powerful America, whose nationals
were in the besieged apartment, was of no avail. One
missile had already slashed into the bedroom, another into
the kitchen. Khaled's mobile phone rang in the bedroom,
but no one could get to it. They cried, prayed, shouted,
fell silent. And embraced one another. They had a Koran
and they read verses from it in loud voices, so people
would hear.<br>
<br>
"It was a nightmare. I will never recover from it. No
horror movie I have seen can compare to it," says Salam,
who wears black mourning clothes. Five missiles had
already struck the house. Khaled tried to calm them: "It's
only property damage, no one has been hurt." Salam says he
was strong and knew no fear. They just didn't want him to
move and risk being hurt.<br>
<br>
They heard the windows shattering, the water streaming
from pipes that had burst and the perfumes flowing out of
bottles that broke one after the other, their scents
wafting through the apartment. From above they heard the
sound of a helicopter. The battle for the house was at its
height. "We phoned and phoned but everyone was helpless.
It was war, and my feeling was that none of us would
survive it." It went on that way for an hour and a
quarter, until 3 A.M.<br>
<br>
When quiet fell, Salam shouted, "Please, please, we are a
family of peace. My name is Salam, shalom." The quiet
continued for a bit, and then the shooting resumed.
Immediately afterward, the Israeli force ordered everyone
to leave the building, because it was going to be blown
up. The order was given through a loudspeaker, in Arabic.
"Anyone who doesn't come out will have the building blown
up with him inside," the soldiers threatened.<br>
<br>
Khaled got up first. "We're all right, everyone is all
right," he whispered. He walked toward the corridor and
turned on a light. Salam told the children to wait until
he could see what was happening. But the shooting started
again and Khaled hurried back to the living room. When the
shooting died down he again made his way toward the front
door and tried to open it. However, the door had been bent
out of shape by the gunfire and the key didn't work.<br>
<br>
Unable to open the door, and taking seriously the
soldiers' threat to blow up the house with them inside,
Khaled went to the bedroom, opened the window, raised his
hands and shouted to the soldiers, in English, "Sir, sir,
we need help. Please come and open the door. I am a
professor, we are people of peace. We have American
passports." There was no response. Khaled tried again,
this time in Arabic: "Help, help, we need help."<br>
<br>
A split second later, Salam heard three shots. Khaled fell
silent. She would never hear his voice again. Inside the
room, the terrifying red laser ray pranced across the
walls.<br>
<br>
Salam crawled over to her husband and found him lying on
the floor, between the bed and the window. At first she
saw no blood, but he was no longer breathing. Then she saw
the hole in his neck. "Diana, Diana," she screamed, "they
have killed your father."<br>
<br>
Then she noticed Mohammed lying on the carpet next to
Diana. "What happened, Diana?" she cried. Diana said
nothing. Salam quickly moved her son, revealing his mouth.
Blood was flowing from his mouth and his cheek was split
open. She tried to stanch the blood coming out of his
cheek using paper towels. At first, she says, she thought
it was a superficial wound. The boy groaned. His eyes were
wide open and he emitted strange noises. His eyes pleaded
for help, but his mother had only the paper towels. She
opened the screen window in the room and shouted
hysterically to the soldiers, "You killed my husband and
my son." She says she heard a soldier laugh.<br>
<br>
"Shut up, woman," the soldier commanded her, in Arabic.
And again a red laser beam skitted around the room.<br>
<br>
"I will never understand how Mohammed was killed. Maybe
one day I will know. Khaled raised his hands, so he was a
convenient target for them. Him they killed in cold blood.
They let him finish speaking and then they killed him. But
how Mohammed was killed I don't understand. I shouted like
a madwoman: `Help, my son is alive, we have to save him.'
They laughed and told me to shut up. The soldier who was
laughing was standing below, on the street. I sat on the
floor and kept on shouting like a crazy person. I pounded
on the door until my hands were injured. I don't know how
those curses came out of me. I called for help, Diana and
Ali were crying hysterically, and the soldiers threatened
to blow up the building with us inside."<br>
<br>
Mohammed was still alive. Diana also shouted to the
soldiers that they had two neighbors who are physicians,
let them at least send over one of them or let an
ambulance get through. Salam says that every time their
shouting rose in pitch the soldiers threatened to shoot
them unless they shut up. Finally the soldiers said they
would send someone. They sent a human shield, using the
outlawed "neighbor procedure," in this case the neighbors'
15-year-old son. The lean boy pushed the door from
outside, Salam pulled from inside, and at last the door
opened.<br>
<br>
"We went out in our pajamas with our hands raised," said
Salam. "The soldiers spoke to us humiliatingly. I shouted
that my son and my husband are killed and they laughed at
us, imitating my shouts. They took us to the neighbors'
apartment. Diana asked where she should sit and a soldier
said, sit on your bottom. When I asked to see the
commanding officer, they laughed at me. When I said I
wanted to be with Mohammed they imitated me. This is the
most criminal and most cruel army in the world. It was
murder in the first degree."<br>
<br>
At 6:15 A.M., four and a half hours after the attack
began, the soldiers allowed a Palestinian ambulance to
drive up to the building. The father and the son were
dead. Salam was taken for interrogation by "Captain Razel"
from the Shin Bet security service, who questioned her
about the wanted men who had hidden in the apartment
below. She had no idea, she says, what was going on
outside.<br>
<br>
And that wasn't the end of it. "After all that they went
into the house and shot at everything they found.
Everything. There isn't a dress, there isn't a towel they
didn't shoot at. At the computer, the refrigerator, all
our belongings, they destroyed everything. They didn't
leave us so much as a pair of socks. They destroyed
everything. A home of 20 years, all our memories, all our
dreams, our whole history. Imagine to yourself what's in a
home of 20 years. They destroyed it all. My husband's
books. I don't understand why. They just wanted to show us
how strong they are and how cruel."<br>
<br>
What do the soldiers who were involved think now? The
sniper who shot a father and his son to death, and those
who denied the dying boy medical assistance? The army
issued a statement the next day: "Dr. Salah and his son
Mohammed were apparently killed by IDF gunfire, but there
was no intention to do them harm. Because of the shooting
of the wanted man from the building, the soldiers were
compelled to shoot in different stages at every floor and
at the roof of the building, and it's possible that in one
of the instances the soldiers didn't identify the sources
of fire correctly or were forced to open fire at
suspicious movements. Because of the continuation of the
event and the lack of information about whether there were
additional wanted individuals in the building, it was not
possible to send medical teams into the building."<br>
<br>
Sirens wail in the main streets of Nablus. Another funeral
procession - Yasser Tantawi, 21. His brother, Khaled, 19,
was killed two months ago. Both are from the city's Balata
refugee camp. A Swedish volunteer, Henryk Larsen, a
medical student from Uppsala University, who joined an
ambulance of the Medical Relief Organization, was an
eyewitness to Yasser's killing last Saturday night.<br>
<br>
Youngsters threw stones at Jeeps, the soldiers opened
fire, Yasser was wounded in the leg and fell to the
ground. The event took place in the camp's cemetery.
Larsen tried to treat the wounded man, but came under fire
and had to retreat. He saw Yasser's body jolted back and
forth as the soldiers kept shooting at him. They shot him,
he says, after he had already been wounded in the leg.<br>
<br>
Dr. Rasan Hamadan, from the Medical Relief Organization,
says that about 10 bullets were found lodged in Yasser's
body and that the medical team reported that he was
unarmed. Larsen, too, says he saw no weapon.<br>
<br>
The response of the IDF Spokesperson's Office: "During
operational activity by an IDF force in Balata refugee
camp the force came under fire and a number of explosive
devices were thrown at it. The soldiers opened fire at a
terrorist armed with a Kalashnikov rifle who was advancing
toward them, and killed him. In the complex reality in
which the IDF operates, maximum efforts are made to avoid
injury to the innocent. At the same time, in the case of
armed individuals who are endangering IDF soldiers and
those around them, it is the soldiers' obligation to
prevent them from acting."<br>
<br>
Two days later, on Monday of this week, soldiers killed
another stone-thrower in the Balata camp cemetery. His
name was Husam Abu Zeitouna. He was 14. </font></td>
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