(Updated: Originally posted December 12, 2006)
Regarding this devastating barbarity perpetuated in Gaza, I question the timing and CUI BONO?
"Killing of 3 Young Children Worsens Palestinian Tension" by GREG MYRE
JERUSALEM, Dec. 11 — The attack began as three masked gunmen emerged from two cars and opened fire with automatic rifles, pumping bullets into the white sedan that was carrying the boys from their home to a private school in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. The bullets killed Osama Balousha, 9, and his brothers Ahmed, 6, and Salam, 3. The car was pocked with dozens of bullets, and the seats and schoolbags inside were drenched with blood.
Baha Balousha, a colonel in the General Intelligence service, was regarded as one of the figures involved in a Palestinian Authority crackdown on Hamas members a decade ago and has long been at odds with the group... was at home but usually travels in the car, may have been the intended target. The car had darkened windows, making it difficult to determine who was inside.
Mr. Balousha's driver and bodyguard use the car to take the children to school each day before returning for him.... The bodyguard was killed and the driver seriously wounded in the shooting.... Mr. Balousha said people whom he did not identify, who want the Palestinian presidency and its intelligence services to fail, were responsible for the killings.
While security officials have been targets, it is highly unusual for their family members to come under attack.... in many instances... difficult to determine who is behind many of the attacks.... A day earlier, unidentified gunmen fired on a convoy of cars carrying the Palestinian interior minister, Siad Siam, but no one was hurt. He is responsible for many of the Palestinian security agencies, but his authority is limited because he is a Hamas member, while most security agencies are led by longtime Fatah loyalists.
Hamas denounced the killings.
Mahmoud Zahar, the Palestinian foreign minister and a Hamas leader:
“This is a gruesome crime. Those who committed this crime have no conscience and are using it for political goals.”
Here is more Palestinian reaction from the Globe:
"Killings of children raise anger in Gaza; Hamas accused but group denies being involved" by Thanassis Cambanis/Boston Globe December 12, 2006
Naji Shurab, a political scientist at Gaza's Al-Azhar University, said that Fatah and Hamas have proved incapable of sharing power, in the process hastening the "disintegration" of Palestinian society instead of Israel defeating Palestinian militants:
"The prevailing culture of violence and the factional mentality all contribute to the violence. Palestinian hands could bury the Palestinian cause."
Waleed al-Mudalal, a political scientist at the Islamic University, predicted that the factions would follow a time-tested prescription to pull back from the abyss: uniting against Israel, perhaps even ending the halting truce reached on Nov. 26:
"As long as the occupation is there, the Palestinians will not fall into a civil war. The incident will lead to limited infighting but not a full-scale civil war."
Seeing as Hamas took Gaza and Abbas is working for Israel, he got it wrong, didn't he?
CUI BONO?
