Court won't free detainee in time to mourn daughter killed by IDF

The Supreme Court will rule Monday on the appeal the father of a 14-year-old Palestinian girl shot dead by Israel Defense Forces soldiers near Tul Karm, Justice Asher Grunes said Thursday.

Nasser Abd al-Qadr, who is under arrest for entering Israel illegally and is being held in the Abu Kabir lock-up, was not allowed to attend his daughter's funeral on Wednesday.

His attorney, Rami Otman, had asked the Supreme Court to allow al-Qadr to join his family for the three-day mourning period. By the time the court has made its decision, however, the three-day period will have ended.

Otman had requested that the district court allow al-Qadr to attend the funeral, but by the time the court submitted its verdict, the funeral had already started.

The court said in its decision that it had to hear the state's position on the matter, but recommended that the Prisons Authority provide escorts so al-Qadr could attend his daughter's funeral, apparently without realizing that the funeral was being held in Tul Karm.

Al-Qadr's daughter Da'ah tried to cross the separation fence near the village of Faroun adjacent to Tul Karm to visit the family's plot of land, says her mother.

She was shot by Israel Defense Forces troops who said they thought she was a militant.

A friend who was with her, Rasha Shalbi, 12, said after the shots were fired, the soldiers approached and asked her to empty her bag, and then noticed Da'ah had been shot. She died on the way to the hospital.

	Mourners carrying the body of 13-year-old Palestinian girl Da'ah Al-Qadr during her funeral in Tul Karm on Wednesday. (Reuters)