NYT: Israeli troops kill 2 women shielding militants

[oblivious]

Israeli troops kill 2 women shielding militants
The New York Times
Published: November 3, 2006

JERUSALEM: Israeli troops fired at a large crowd of unarmed Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip Friday as the women approached a mosque to help Palestinian militants holed up inside. Two women were killed and about 10 injured, hospitals said, in a shooting that provoked widespread outrage among Palestinians.

...Early this morning, a Palestinian radio station called on women to march to the mosque to support the gunmen inside. A short time later, hundreds of women, dressed in flowing black abayas and wearing head scarves, headed toward it.

As they approached the mosque, shots rang out, but the women continued marching. A moment later, a number of women were hit, and the crowd scattered. Some of the wailing women turning back, while others kept advancing toward the mosque, climbing over improvised dirt barriers set up by the Israeli forces.

"We heard the call for women to help the fighters, and we decided to go," said Mona Abu Jasir, 37, who was hit by a bullet in the right leg. "We had no weapons, and we were walking toward the mosque when I was shot." Television footage showed at least one man in the crowd, though there was no indication he had a weapon. The man was shot and fell to the ground, and was surrounded by women until rescue workers arrived.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/03/africa/web.1103mideast.php

Gunfire leaves veiled woman dead on a Gaza street
03 Nov 2006 09:00:54 GMT
Source: Reuters

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Slowly at first, then with growing confidence, the crowd of Palestinian women, all wearing traditional hijab gowns and coloured veils, approached the outer wall of the Gaza mosque.

Inside, 60 Palestinian gunmen were hiding out, pinned down by Israeli tanks and troops positioned just a few hundred yards away, on the other side of an earth barricade.

The women, around four dozen of them, some elderly and some teenagers, were hoping to help the gunmen flee, or at least act as "human shields" and press for their release unharmed.

As they walked together down a deserted road towards the mosque, pressing themselves up against a high sandstone wall on their right, with Israeli troops off to their left, gunfire rang out from the Israeli positions.

The women pushed on, walking faster and pressing closer together, chattering encouragement to one another as they went.

More shots cracked overhead as the Israeli troops tried to force the women to turn back. Some did turn around, but others, the majority, pushed on.

Then, up ahead, where the front of the procession was advancing, several gunshots rang out from Israeli troops and one woman, dressed in a tan-brown hijab, fell to the ground.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L03880671.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/women-left-dead-as-gunmen-escape/2006/11/03/1162340055603.html
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-11-03T113840Z_01_L12263400_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C1-TopStories-newsOne-2

Palestinian Authority Terrorists Use Female Shields Against IDF
14:05 Nov 03, '06

Palestinian Authority terrorists used women to protect them from arrest by IDF soldiers – at the cost of life -- on Friday. One woman died in Gaza.

Arab women in northern Gaza were urged in a radio broadcast Friday morning to go to a mosque in Beit Hanoun to serve as ‘human shields’ for gunmen holed up in the Muslim religious building surrounded by IDF forces.

According to military sources a number of Arab terrorists who were wanted for Kassam rocket attacks had taken refuge in the mosque, which was also used as a storehouse for weapons and other materials.

The women rushed to the building despite the exchange of gunfire between the terrorists and IDF soldiers. Local sources claimed that IDF soldiers opened fire on the women, killing one and wounding ten others. An army spokesman explained that the soldiers had exchanged gunfire with terrorists standing among the women rioters at the scene.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=114791

Women set up "human shield" for fleeing fighters but one falls
MIL-3LD MIDEAST-UNREST-SIEGE
Women set up "human shield" for fleeing fighters but one falls

GAZA, Nov 3 (KUNA) -- Braving gunfire volleys fired by Israeli troops that besieged scores of Palestinian fighters in a mosque in the north Gazan town of Beit Hanoun on Friday, hundreds of Palestinian women rushed to the scene creating a "human shield" that enabled many of the gunmen to break the dragnet and get away unharmed.

A spokesman of the Israeli Army told Israel Radio that one of the hundreds of the women who gathered in the mosque vicinity challenging the heavily-armed regulars was shot dead while ten others were wounded in the confrontation between the soldiers and the unarmed women.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=918071