Israeli soldiers beat a 60-year old Palestinian woman to death

22/09/2008| IslamWeb

Israeli soldiers beat a 60-year old Palestinian woman to death during a military raid on her village in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, a witness said.

The witness said troops had pushed her.

The soldiers came to Abu Dis, near Jerusalem, apparently targeting students lodging in a property owned by 60-year-old Mariam Ayyad.

One of the students, who would only be identified by his nickname, Abu Yaffa, said Ayyad tried to block the troops.

"She went outside in order to prevent them arresting someone from her house," he told Reuters. "They knocked her down and there was blood on her head."

An Israeli military spokesman denied this, saying Ayyad fell down some stairs while troops searched nearby but that there was no physical contact between them at the time.

Ayyad's family decided against an autopsy and buried her before dawn, said Musa Jaffal, a doctor at a local clinic.

Nesrin Jasan, an Abu Dis doctor who inspected Ayyad's body, said she had fallen and struck her head.

Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, where President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction holds sway, have complained that Israeli raids and the expansion of Jewish settlements undermine their "peace" efforts.

Israeli troops killed a 14-year-old Palestinian from Asira al-Kabaliya village in the northern West Bank on Saturday.

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Israeli soldiers

 

Reuters