ABA, West Bank, April 17 -- Peace effort or no, it is still considered
a badge of honor in Palestinian society to be a martyr for the cause.
But no one ever expected Hilmiya al-Tous, mother of 12, to become one.
She was not militant; she was not even political. In this small, isolated
village, she raised goats, chickens and children. That was her life, modest
and circumscribed.
Her death on the night of March 20 got lost in a shuffle of momentous
events. The next day, Israel withdrew from a sizable chunk of the West
Bank and Pope John Paul II arrived in the Holy Land. It was Mother's Day
in the Arab world, and Mrs. Tous was quietly buried by her children while
her husband, Mahmoud, lay unconscious in a hospital bed.
Mr. and Mrs. Tous were shot by an Israeli soldier or soldiers -- she
in the head, he in the back -- as they were driving away from an Israeli
checkpoint. The matter is under investigation by the Israeli military authorities.
The army has said that the soldiers believed they were "dealing with
a cell of terrorists." They learned later that it was a 45-year-old
mother and a 48-year-old father who, with an Israeli government permit,
had worked in construction jobs in Israel for 21 years.
That was a tense night in the West Bank, after a shooting attack that
wounded three Israelisin a taxicab in the Hebron area. The Israeli Army
had set up several roadblocks. Mr. Tous, according to army officials, made
a U-turn when he spied one unexpectedly.
He drove wildly away, as if fleeing, they said, and nearly ran over
soldiers. The soldiers perceived their lives to be in danger and opened
fire, the army said.
Mr. Tous, who was recently released from the hospital, offered a different
account. He saidhe and his wife were returning home from dropping one of
their nine daughters off in aneighboring village.
They unexpectedly encountered a roadblock where, Mr. Tous said, he was
signaled to turn around. He said he did, after rolling down his window
to talk tothe soldier and getting the same hand signal. He said he was
driving away when he passed an
Israeli Army jeep on a slight rise above the road.
Maybe, he said, they thought his car, which has a yellow Israeli plate,
was stolen. Or maybe they did not realize that the first soldier had ordered
him to turn.
There was a "rainstorm" of automatic gunfire, and the car
filled with blood, he said. His wife's body, in slow motion, tumbled onto
him, and he sped toward the nearest Arab village, he said. He woke up nearly
a week later, in a hospital in Hebron, asking his children, "Where
is your mother?"
According to the army's preliminary investigation, "the soldiers
appear to have acted in adherence to procedure and in accord with the regulations
for opening fire," a statement read.
The Tous family lives by the road sign for their town, which is encircled
by Jewish settlements in an area of the West Bank still controlled by the
Israelis. It is a small enclave of concrete shacks, which are topped by
tarpaulins and lined inside, floors and walls, by rugs that hide the stubble
of the graveled cement.
A steep makeshift ramp leads up into their home, where the children,
who range in age from 4 to 30, lined the living room to greet a visitor.
They all seemed calm, some resigned, some depressed, except for 15-year-old
Muhammad, who wore a backward Nike baseball cap. He expressed fury.
"What is worse than that they killed my mother is that nobody paid
any attention," he said.
"She was killed in cold blood, and nobody reacted.
"The Israeli Army said they were sorry. I saw it on TV.
But what can we do with such an apology? We cannot eat it."
"And our people?" he continued. "Where were they? In
the past when people used to be killed by the Israeli Army, the Palestinians
went into the streets. They reacted. This time, nota word beyond the condolences
from the village. Where was the Palestinian Authority? Where was Yasir
Arafat? They were too busy with the pope."
Since the Palestinian Authority began gradually assuming control of
its population and since fatal terrorist attacks have declined, deadly
encounters between Israeli security forces and Palestinian civilians have
decreased. In the Palestinian territories, some 105 Palestinians were killed
by Israeli forces in 1994, according to Btselem, an Israeli human rights
group.
Eight were killed in 1999, and two so far this year, including Mrs.
Tous. (The statistics do not distinguish between the kinds of killings,
between deliberate military assassinations of presumed bomb-makers and
the shootings of unarmed civilians.)
Many advocates for Palestinians are distrustful of statistics that show
a drop in Israeli activity that they have condemned for years as abusive,
like the security force killings and home demolitions. They are also suspicious
of reports that the Israelis are liberalizing their positions.
It is not that they do not believe the numbers or appreciate the policy
changes. But they think that the changes mask a complex reality, and they
fear that continued violations of human rights will be ignored.
"Activities on the ground continue to negatively affect Palestinians
and the impact of these actions are far-reaching," said a statement
from the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the
Environment. "Decisions to liberalize mean nothing if actions thatviolate
human rights continue on a daily basis."
And many ordinary Palestinians, especially those who still live under
Israeli security control, assume that any lull in what they see as unrelenting
hostility against them will be short-lived.
"Peace means nothing to us," said Mr. Tous's father, Ibrahim,
81.
"We cannot taste it. Arab blood is still cheap. Arab land is still
occupied."
The old man carried with him, in the pocket of his flowing caftan, a
worn and futile document from Israeli courts that permits him to harvest
the figs and peaches from his disputed land. Israeli settlers, he said,
have prevented him from entering it for years, and he cannot find an Israeli
officer willing to accompany his tractor.
In the Tous family home, normal life turned upside down in late March.
Hani, 16, the oldest boy, didn't pass his final exams "because of
the accident," he said. Riman, who is 4, decided to believe that her
mother had gone to Mecca on a pilgrimage, and she often squatted by the
open back door, scanning the hillside for her mother's return.
Mr. Tous, who cannot return to work because of his injuries, says he
believes they were shot because the Israelis were angry that the next day
they would have to return more land to the Palestinians. Perhaps the soldiers
were extremists, he said. It is the only explanation he can conjure, he
said.
Maybe someday Israeli officials will come and take his testimony; everything
is in God's hands, he said.
"She was the main figure in the house," he said of his wife.
"But what can we do? We are not the first and not the last to be shot
dead by the Israelis. That's life."