Execution at Dawn in Holy Jerusalem

By Kawther Salam • Oct 4th, 2010 at 19:11 • Category: Kawther's Choice The darkness was still a lowered curtain in the early hours of dawn in the holy occupied city of Jerusalem. The crows were flying in the sky, witnesses of the Israeli terrorist execution of a poor Palestinian laborer. Chasing, beating, torturing and detaining laborers by israel while they try to enter Jerusalem from the side of Al-Issawiya village north of Jerusalem is a normal occurrence.
In the dawn of last Sunday, Izz al-Din al-Qawezba, 38 years old, a married father of six children from the village of Saeer in the district of Hebron left his children sleeping and went to his work in Israel. Al-Qawezba and his friends were chased by the Israeli death squads, the so-called border police, who are a unit of the IDF. According to a statement of his uncle, Al-Qawezba was not able to run away because he was overweight. The death squad grabbed him, executed him in cold blood and then placed his body in a plastic bag and dragged him away. According to other laborers also on their way to work and who witnessed the execution, they were detained and beaten seriously. Crows flew over the blood trail of the victim, fighting to get some of it.

Israel has murdered in cold blood 59 Palestinian citizens after being arrested since the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000 and until yesterday October 3 2010.

Salah al-Qawezba, a cousin of the executed labor who was 20 meters from the victim while they executed him said "we were chased from half past two until six o'clock in the morning, when I managed together with another group of workers from Hebron to climb the apartheid wall in the area of Al-Zaim – Al-Tur. After we jumped, another group of workers were trying to follow us. Suddenly a "Toyota" car of the “Israeli border police” death squads found us; they hid under a bridge and began chasing us”.

Fethiya with her children after receiving the news of the execution of her her husband.

He added: "My cousin was 20 meters from me; I asked him to hurry up but he was slow because of his weight. His brother Hassan was walking close to him and I asked them again to hurry up because the soldiers were still behind us. Suddenly I saw a soldier approaching Izz al-Din, he put his rifle on the his body and then shoot him. I went back to find out his situation after being shot, dozens of workers followed me. When we approached the scene, the IDF death squads surrounded us and started beating us with cruelty and violence. At this time we saw them putting the body in a black bag and dragging him for a distance of more than fifty meters. The body and the about 100 workers present were transported to and released in Al-Issawiya village. Hassan al-Qawesba, the brother of the murder victim, was arrested by the IDF death squads.
Dr. Hanna Issa, an international law expert, commented on the crime. He said: “the execution of the 38 years old Palestinian in cold blood by the Israeli troops from point-blank range is a grave breach of law punishable under international law. The crime is considered a crime against humanity”. He added: “that the Israeli occupation troops continue to violate the rights of Palestinian citizens to be secure in the life and in their persons and continue to use excessive force in dealing with the Palestinian civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories. In the recent years the IDF soldiers have exceeded the forms of murdering Palestinians. Many were sniped, others were shot in the head during peaceful demos, and several Palestinians were assassinated in cold blood.”
The Israeli executions are a grave breach of the basic rules of international humanitarian law, which forbids the use of weapons or the means to fight that would cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering for the human beings, and which expressly protect civilians.

Kawther Salam is a Palestinian journalist. She had a career of over 20 years working for various newspapers and TV stations in Palestine. She forced to live in the Exile in Vienna since 2002.
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