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Muhammed Abu Shabak holding a photo of his children who were killed on Sunday. (Daniel Bar-On / Jini)
Last update - 18:25 04/03/2008
Following a Haaretz report
Hamas lets Fatah man who lost two kids in IDF raid visit their graves
By Avi Issacharoff , Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Israel, Gaza Strip, Hamas 

Following Tuesday's Haaretz report, Hamas has decided to let a Fatah activist return to the Gaza Strip to visit the burial site of two of his children who were killed Sunday during an Israel Defense Forces' raid in Jabalya.

Muhammed Abu Shabak, a Fatah activist and rival of Hamas faction, fled to Ramallah last June, at the beginning of the Fatah-Hamas civil war, after repeated threats on his life.

After his children Jacqueline and Iyad were announced dead on Sunday, Abu Shabak was told by Hamas militants that if he tried to come to their Gaza Strip funeral, he would be killed.
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However, following report of the story in Haaretz on Tuesday, Hamas reneged on its threats and decided to let Abu Shabak enter Gaza in order to visit his children's graves. Later on Tuesday, Abu Shabak was indeed granted entrance to the Strip and hurried to see his children's burial site.

Abu Shabak and his acquaintances suspect that the Israel Air Force targeted his house and that the attack was not accidental. They said that in recent incidents in the Strip, Hamas men were hiding near the homes of Fatah activists so that the IDF strikes would target these homes.

Hamas' Gaza spokesman, Fawzi Barhum, rejected the claims, saying "this is a lie. Our battle is with the Israeli enemy and it is impossible that we would do such a thing."

Earlier on Tuesday, before Hamas reneged on tis warnings, Abu Shabak said "I don't know whom I'm more angry with - Hamas, who won't let me go to my children's funeral, or Israel, who killed them and stopped their mother from coming to see them in the hospital."

"I didn't say a word to the kids when I left the house," he added. "Only when I made it through the Erez crossing did I call and tell Jacqueline I was moving to Ramallah and promised to see her again soon. I never saw her again."

His house in Ramallah was filled with guests who came to console him, almost all of them, like himself, refugees who have been sentenced to death in Gaza. Some of them escaped assassination attempts. All Fatah's senior officials and former Palestinian Authority officers in Gaza arrived. Many had left their families behind in Gaza, because Israel refused to let the families join their fathers and husbands in the West Bank.

Mohammed sat grieving in a small room. He used to talk to his children and especially to his eldest, 17-year-old Jacqueline, every day. "Every day she told me she missed me. In May, after she and her brother Iyad passed their exams, I planned to bring them to Ramallah. She was an outstanding student, dreamed of studying engineering at university. She was afraid of being teased because of her foreign name. She was always angry with me for choosing that name."

"On Saturday I spoke to her at about 10 P.M. Jacqueline was sick and so was Iyad, who had back problems. I told my wife that I wanted her to take the children and move to her family's house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, where it's quieter. Her leg is broken, so she said she'd go the next day. At midnight Jacqueline called. The military operation had begun, and I heard the shelling and bombing. She told me that my little son, Mohammed Ali, kept running to the window every time he heard shooting and asked me to speak to him. I did. He promised not to cause her any problems. An hour later I called her again and asked everyone to gather in the living room. At 2:15 A.M. we had our last conversation. She told me she missed me."

He burst into tears again.

"I told her not to be afraid. I promised her that tomorrow we'd talk on instant messenger and she asked me to talk to Iyad, but I said I was tired and would talk to them later. At about 2:30 A.M. they were killed."

Abu Shabak's friends say that Iyad had left the living room to go to the bathroom when a shell hit the house and he was seriously injured. He called for help and his sister Jacqueline rushed to his side. As she approached him, soldiers shot her. Rescue teams took the two, still breathing, to the hospital, but they died soon after arrival. Their mother remained in the shelled house with a broken leg and three small children. The phone lines were cut off and nobody could approach the house, which was in the center of the IDF's operation site, to tell her of their death.

Meanwhile, one of the neighbors called Abu Shabak's friend Nashet, who also lives in Ramallah, and told him what had happened. Nashet went to Abu Shabak's house. "He woke me up. I asked him what are you doing here, what happened? He told me Jacqueline was killed. Only after I collapsed and was taken to the hospital did my friends tell me the whole truth," says Mohammed.

Asked if he would still try to move his family to Ramallah, Mohammed says, "No, someone must take care of Jacqueline and Iyad's graves, and my wife won't leave them behind."
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  1.   clickfool,/dutch and paddy 10:09  |  danny 04/03/08
  2.   So You See: Being A Terrorist Is Bad 10:10  |  Yishai Kohen 04/03/08
  3.   and you dare to publish it. 10:22  |  jojo 04/03/08
  4.   fatah man 10:28  |  discusted 04/03/08
  5.   There`s more to this story than meets the eye! 11:04  |  lakshmi 04/03/08
  6.   YES OLMERT! THESE ARE THE GUYS TO TALK W AND MAKE PEACE, RIGHT??? 11:04  |  Chris 04/03/08
  7.   So sad. What words can say anything. 11:18  |  De 04/03/08
  8.   IDF babi killers 11:19  |  Ali 04/03/08
  9.   Hamas supporters are Fascists 11:22  |  ScotGuy 04/03/08
  10.   BOO HOO! 11:25  |  Brain intact 04/03/08
  11.   Lakshmi`s comments 11:25  |  Abou Zouzou 04/03/08
  12.   indiscriminate killing! 11:31  |  Nabulsi 04/03/08
  13.   Sure they don`t let him see the bodies... 11:38  |  Disgusted 04/03/08
  14.   Sure they don`t let him see the bodies... 11:38  |  Disgusted 04/03/08
  15.   And who puts their children in the line of fire? 11:47  |  Yonatan 04/03/08
  16.   to Yonatan 12:05  |  Zirbry 04/03/08
  17.   #15, Yonantan 12:31  |  Nabulsi 04/03/08
  18.   think then speak 12:31  |  Ash 04/03/08
  19.   Yonathan 12:34  |  Phil 04/03/08
  20.   No Nabulsi # 12 and Ali 8 12:35  |  ChanahS 04/03/08
  21.   Boo hoo hoo 12:49  |  spade 04/03/08
  22.   why the IDF killed Jackie in cold blood? 12:53  |  Zaki 04/03/08
  23.   That`s it.. 13:11  |  farid 04/03/08
  24.   My condolences to the parents and family 13:17  |  Lynn 04/03/08
  25.   Hamas, the dregs of the earth 13:21  |  Lynn 04/03/08
  26.   Fatah man loses children. 13:22  |  David Nigel Braham 04/03/08
  27.   jojo from munich 13:32  |  danny 04/03/08
  28.   never miss oportunity to miss oportunity 13:40  |  paulo2005 04/03/08
  29.   paulo2005 13:47  |  European Nurse 04/03/08
  30.   #12 And Israeli life means nothing to you? 14:04  |  petra 04/03/08
  31.   Abbas Man Coming to Spy 14:10  |  Mary 04/03/08
  32.   Hamas really loves it`s people so much, all of us 14:13  |  Fathawi 4 ever 04/03/08
  33.   "jojo" is in not in Germany 14:17  |  IP-Checker 04/03/08
  34.   to jojo 14:23  |  maccabim 04/03/08
  35.   "jojo" don`t know to spell Munich/München 14:23  |  Analyst 04/03/08
  36.   Baby Killers 14:28  |  News 04/03/08
  37.   Baby Killers 14:28  |  News 04/03/08
  38.   # 3 jojo of Munchen....Hamas is the culprit 14:41  |  Lynn 04/03/08
  39.   Gaza is a War Zone because... 14:41  |  Yonatan 04/03/08
  40.   How many innocent children have died in the name of jihad? 14:46  |  Yoel 04/03/08
  41.   He deserves more than this 15:06  |  Palestinian 04/03/08
  42.   The Unfortunate People of Gaza 15:36  |  S. Goog 04/03/08
  43.   #5 lakshmi - why don`t you tell us the rest of the story 15:40  |  * BEN JABO 04/03/08
  44.   #8 Ali - Cairo 15:43  |  * BEN JABO 04/03/08
  45.   Lakshmi # 5 _ You Mean Your Lying Eyes, Your Lying Mouth and 16:12  |  Eli 04/03/08
  46.   I have a hard time calling Al Quds Palestinians "Palestinians" 16:41  |  Gaza palestinian 04/03/08
  47.   Accidents or not 16:55  |  howiej 04/03/08
  48.   The story is far feteched 17:04  |  Eran 04/03/08
  49.   Hamas killed the kids 17:20  |  MO 04/03/08
  50.   41 Ben Jabo,there is a well researched story in Vanity Fair which 17:49  |  lakshmi 04/03/08
  51.   Congrats Israel 17:52  |  Sama 04/03/08
  52.   what if you say is wrong 18:03  |  gaza 04/03/08
  53.   # 44 Gaza Pal...you could be too 18:26  |  Lynn 04/03/08
  54.   i told you the previous article was a lie 18:28  |  gaza 04/03/08
  55.   # 39 Al Quds....Vanity Fair notsithstanding 18:28  |  Lynn 04/03/08
  56.   Hamas reads"Haaretz" !! So do the fiddlers.! 18:32  |  Stephen. 04/03/08
  57.   Befrore blaming each other Fatah and Hamas should cure Pal´s 18:41  |  Karl 04/03/08
  58.   This is a sad story but... 18:55  |  Rafa 04/03/08
  59.   @ 36 no need to check the IP. Much easier. Anyway let him or her 18:59  |  Karl 04/03/08
  60.   European Nurse (29), see posting 33. But the Nurse 19:07  |  Karl 04/03/08
  61.   the Nazis blamed the Jews for the holocaust 19:14  |  Sami 04/03/08
  62.   #3 IDF carrying out new Holocaust? 19:16  |  Ben 04/03/08
  63.   very un-Jewish responses 19:30  |  utterly appalled 04/03/08
  64.   The Warsaw Ghetto ... 19:43  |  Jim Zaghby 04/03/08
  65.   I guess Hamas reads Haaretz... 20:48  |  Aphemia 04/03/08
  66.   Only on Haaretz 20:52  |  pal 04/03/08
  67.   Enlightenment? 21:36  |  D. Krille 04/03/08
  68.   family should have been let into W. Bank#3 is right 21:57  |  Silkey 04/03/08
  69.   The punk murdered his own kids...let them be brainwashed 22:09  |  Stayin Alive 04/03/08
  70.   Amazing that the only arab children some of you