Raed Abdel Misk, with his daughter, Samir and son Mo'umen. The bomb that he carried on to a bus yesterday killed 20, including 5 children.
Posted on 08/20/2003 4:43:45 PM PDT by saquin
Raed Abdel Misk, with his daughter, Samir and son Mo'umen. The bomb that he carried on to a bus yesterday killed 20, including 5 children.
THERE is no trace of evil in the beaming face of the proud father balancing his two young children in his arms. Yet Raed Abdel Misk, a religious scholar, was identified yesterday as the suicide bomber who took the lives of Jewish infants barely old enough to walk.
The murder of 20 people, including five children — the youngest 11 months old — and the wounding of 120 others, 40 of them children, is being dubbed the Massacre of the Children. However, the bomber’s relatives spoke of a family man respected in his community as an imam and scholar.
Misk’s relatives, gathered in a hall in Hebron yesterday to mourn and celebrate his passing as a Palestinian shaheed (martyr), said that he would have been unconcerned about killing Israeli children. His son, Moumen, (whose name means “Believer” in Arabic) and his daughter, Samir, are aged four and 18 months respectively. His wife, Arij, is five months pregnant with their third child.
Yet on Tuesday night Misk, 29, boarded the No 2 bus in Jerusalem, crowded with Ultra Orthodox Jewish worshippers and their children returning from prayers at the Wailing Wall. He was armed with a 5kg (11lb) bomb packed with nails and shrapnel.
“When he got on the bus and saw all the children, he would think of his own children,” Ayad Misk, 32, a cousin, said. “But he would think, OK, today they are children but in 15 or 20 years they are going to be Israeli soldiers and they could be coming here to Hebron and killing his own son or daughter or other members of his family.”
In fact, ultra-Orthodox Jews are exempt from serving in the Israeli Army. Beit Y’Israel, the neighbourhood where the explosion occurred, is home to many members of the Neturei Karta, a sect that does not recognise Israel’s right to exist and supports Palestinian statehood. Members of the sect were seen among the crowds observing the rescue effort after the bombing.
The classic profile of a suicide bomber is an unmarried male in his late teens or early 20s. Misk was a lecturer on Islamic law at Hebron’s Sharia College and studying to become a Muslim magistrate — qualifying him to sit at Islamic courts — at al-Najah University in Nablus. The families of some Palestinian suicide bombers have complained that Muslim clerics should be prepared to sacrifice themselves rather than encourage other people’s sons to do so.
As a member of Hamas, the Palestinian extremist group, Misk was bent on avenging the deaths of two militants from Hebron and two others in Nablus at the hands of the Israeli Army in the past two months.
Relatives said that Misk would have regarded Tuesday’s actions as “an eye for an eye” He was blown to pieces before he could see the result of his actions.
Rescue crews described giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to babies and having to calm infants as they took them to hospital.
Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Prime Minister, told his Cabinet colleagues that the perpetrators of the bombing were animals.
The killings prompted Israel to prepare retaliatory raids against the Palestinians, threatening to plunge the Middle East into a new cycle of violence. Last night 15 Israeli tanks were reported to be heading for Ramallah, where Yassir Arafat has his base.
Yesterday, Misk’s relatives said that he would have had no regrets. They said that he had been driven to martyrdom by resentment of the Israeli occupation and a deep knowledge of the Koran.
“When he was travelling to Nablus and back he saw the suffering of the people caused by the Israeli roadblocks and the actions of the soldiers,” his cousin said. “What he did on Tuesday he really believed in because he knew what it meant to be a martyr. He never believed in the hudna (Palestinian ceasefire) because he could see the Israelis were destroying homes every day.”
Hours after Misk exploded his device, Israeli soldiers went into Hebron and arrested 17 people, including his two brothers. Yesterday, possessions were being moved out of the family home in expectation of the Israeli Army demolishing it, as is customary with the houses of suicide bombers.
I don't know how civilized people can peacefully coexist in the world with animals like this.
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| Wed Aug 20, 3:47 PM ET |
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Shmuel Tabenfeld, 5 months, of New Square, New York was killed along with his mother Goldie Tabenfeld in a suicide bombing of a bus returning from the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Tuesday August 19, 2003. (AP Photo/Handout Photo From Family) |
Religion of Peace 101.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Stereotyping. I am ultra-Orthodox, I used to live in Beit Yisrael and my son just joined the Israeli army.
The Palestinians really are their own worst enemies. They are headed for a dead end.
Even if they succeed in driving Israel into the sea, they will be left with a culture that teaches it's own children to hate............This is sick, sick, sick.
It would seem by this logic, Isreal should kill his family. The likelyhood of his offspring growing up to be suicide bombers is very high.
These Pali's are really endearing themselves to us. I won't be disrepectful to animals by comparing them to such. These arab scumbags are worse than crap. What do you do with crap? You flush it, bury it, do anything you have to in order to get rid of the stench and the filth. Children are children, it doesn't matter that someday they will grow up and become adults. As children, they are innocent and pure. What kind of religion is Islam if they seek to kill the most innocent of people - the babies and children? Islam sucks and is being exposed for what it is, a gutter religion.
No more explanation needed!
What idiots. Total idiots! Someone needs to either do the same to his kids (forgive me Lord!) or remove them from that toxic region before they're totally brainwashed.
Worse. They should be taken and raised as Jews.
Yes --- he's the the look of an allah worshiper.
That's it. Kill them all and let Allah sort it out.
There can be no peace on this world until every Muslim is dead. Yep. "Final Solution;" call it what you will.
Us or them; them or us. Take your choice; choose a side and LET'S ROLL. Way past time.
--Boris
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