Military

DATE=11/06/00

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

TITLE=PALESTINIAN / MOTHERS

NUMBER=5-47336

BYLINE=LAURIE KASSMAN

DATELINE=RAMALLAH

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: More than 170 Palestinians have been killed in more than five-weeks of clashes with the Israeli military. They are known as martyrs. Their pictures are plastered on walls and kiosks along Arab streets. A group of mothers who lost their sons in the clashes recently met with reporters to respond to accusations that they are willingly sending their children into danger. Correspondent Laurie Kassman has the story from Ramallah.

TEXT: The latest intifada, or uprising, has often pitted rock-throwing Palestinian teenagers against Israeli soldiers. Palestinian stones are sometimes answered by Israeli bullets. When that happens, Palestinians have been shot. Some survive. Some do not.

Most of the victims are Palestinian teenage boys. For the Palestinians, they have become martyrs of the uprising, known as the Al Aqsa Intifada - for the holy Muslim shrine in Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of a future state.

For their mothers, they are not martyrs. They are the sons they will never see grow up.

Fifteen-year-old Mohammed was the youngest of Mona Ibrahim's children. He was her favorite. Choking back her tears, she says she would have tried to stop him from joining the other stone throwers, but he never told her what he was doing. One day she saw him among the protesters on T-V and confined him to the house. She spoke through an interpreter.

/// ARABIC, FADE TO ENGLISH INTERPRETER ACT ///

The next day, I forbid him from getting out of the house. I made him study because he had an exam. Saturday I took him with me and we worked the whole day in the garden. In the afternoon, he said he wanted to go with his friends, since he had been two-days at home. I felt I should not detain him further and that he deserves to be with his friends.

/// END ACT ///

The day he was killed, Mrs. Ibrahim says she had a premonition and went into the street to look for him.

/// INTERPRETER ACT ///

I felt something in my heart during the time. I felt Mohamed was in danger. I went out and started asking the kids about Mohamed. One of the kids, who was with him, was coming by and he was asking about the house of Mohamed Nabil. He did not know I was the mother. And, I asked why are you asking about the house of Mohamed Nabil? Did Mohamed die? And he said, Yes Mohamed Nabil died. This is how I got the shock and I got the news about my son's murder

/// END ACT ///

Inam Hamouda has nine children, but her husband died years ago so she depended on her eldest son, 30-year-old Ra-ed, to help her raise her family. Then he married and had two children of his own. But she says he came by every day for coffee and to help his younger brothers and sisters.

Mrs. Hamouda describes to a news conference the day he was shot. She says his friends told her he was wounded in the leg. But when she rushed to the hospital, she learned he had been shot in the head. Mrs. Hamouda spoke through an interpreter.

/// ARABIC ACT FADE TO ENGLISH ///

I felt I was losing my mind. For three to four days after that he was clinically dead. On the fifth day, he died. My son died for Al-Aqsa, for Palestine and for all the people. I just pray to God to give us patience to bear with all we have to bear.

/// END ACT ///

Mrs. Hamouda - her eyes red from crying - says her son had never seen Al Aqsa or Jerusalem, but he wanted to be a part of the intifada. She says she begged him every day not to go with the rock throwers because he had a family to care for. But Ra-ed just told her not to worry.

The Israeli military insists it does not fire live ammunition unless the soldiers are shot at first. The mothers at the news conference say their sons were not carrying weapons when they were killed.

The women also reject some Israeli allegations that Palestinian mothers voluntarily send their children into danger.

The level of violence appears to have subsided after Israel and the Palestinians agreed to a cease-fire last Thursday, but the clashes have not ended. And neither have the mothers' tears. (SIGNED)

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