A six-month-old Israeli baby died on Monday of injuries he sustained when Palestinians stoned his Jewish settler parents' car in the West Bank last week, according to the Jerusalem Post, quoting a spokesmen at Hadassah-University Hospital in Jerusalem's Ein Kerem.
Yehuda Hayim Shoham died of severe brain damage, said the paper.
The stoning took place near the Palestinian village of Lubin A-Sharkia in Nablus, north of Ramallah.
The attack caused outrage among Jewish settlers who went on a rampage in Palestinian villages in the West Bank, demanding that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon abandon his so-called “policy of restraint,” according to AFP in its report.
Radio Israel said that the funeral would take place Monday. The baby's family decided to begin the funeral at the prime minister's residence in order to protest against his policy.
Sharon had visited the baby in the hospital on Sunday.
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, Reuters reports that Palestinians have killed approximately 88 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. The June 1 Tel Aviv suicide bombing raised that toll by at least 20. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 450 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s. The most recent Israeli tank attack raises that death toll to 453.
According to Amnesty International, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children.
In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
