Journalist of Jenin's Despair Dies of Wound
"The two men began taking photographs, Mr. Dahla said. Both wore vests marked Press, though only Mr. Dahla's was
bulletproof. One of the armored vehicles began shooting, he said. Mr. Dahla was shot in the left shin, Mr. Abu Zahra in the
right thigh."
By JAMES BENNET with JOEL GREENBERG
July 13, 2002
The New York Times
JENIN, West Bank, July 12 - Jenin's militants and Israel's military have made this city notorious as a place of death. But to
Imad Abu Zahra, it was home, and as a journalist he struggled to express its history, its turbulent politics and its
desperation.
Today, he died of a wound he suffered on Thursday, when he made his last effort to tell the world about life here by
photographing Israeli tanks downtown.
Two other Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy, were killed today, by Israeli gunfire in the Gaza Strip, bringing to at least
36 the number of Palestinians killed since June 20, when Israel began seizing West Bank cities in response to back-to-back
suicide bombings in Jerusalem. Another death was reported though not confirmed.
At least 17 of those killed have been unarmed civilians, said the Israeli human rights group B'tselem.
The Israeli offensive in the West Bank, which has the tacit backing of the Bush administration, has succeeded so far in
stopping suicide attacks in Israel. Cafes in Jerusalem - at least those that stayed open on the Jewish Sabbath - were
jumping tonight, after weeks of fearful silence.
The price to Palestinians has been high, with hundreds of thousands of people who Israel acknowledges are innocent virtually
prisoners in their homes, under 24-hour curfew and stringent travel restrictions.
Some have paid for the heightened military alert with their lives, including Randa al-Hindi, 45, and her 2-year-old daughter,
Noor. Returning home from a relative's wedding, they were shot dead last Saturday as their truck, in a foggy dawn, approached
Israeli Army outposts around the isolated Gaza settlement of Netzarim. The army at first denied that its troops had opened fire,
then said they had fired warning shots after spotting suspicious people.
An army investigation found that soldiers had violated the army's firing regulations. The soldiers involved will face disciplinary
hearings, an army spokesman said.
The curfew had been temporarily lifted here on Thursday when Mr. Abu Zahra, 34, was shot. The Israeli Army said today that it
was investigating.
The army said that on Thursday afternoon, two armored vehicles were moving through the downtown area when one hit a light
pole and became stuck. A crowd gathered, and Palestinians threw firebombs and then opened fire, prompting the soldiers to
fire back, the army said.
Witnesses here contradicted that account. Said Shawqi Dahla, a photographer for the official Palestinian news agency, was with
Mr. Abu Zahra when they spotted the armored vehicle, about 150 feet down Salahadin Street. "We thought it was a good
picture," he recalled from a hospital bed here.
With the curfew lifted, Palestinians were moving through the streets, Mr. Dahla said, but there had been no gunplay or other
violence.
The two men began taking photographs, Mr. Dahla said. Both wore vests marked Press, though only Mr. Dahla's was
bulletproof. One of the armored vehicles began shooting, he said. Mr. Dahla was shot in the left shin, Mr. Abu Zahra in the
right thigh.
The journalists managed to reach cover in a nearby hair salon, its gray stone door frame today still marked with Mr. Abu
Zahra's crimson handprint. No ambulance could reach them, said Mr. Dahla and Ali Samoudi, a Reuters television cameraman
who arrived within minutes. After about half an hour, a taxi carried them to Jenin Hospital, the witnesses said.
The large-caliber bullet that struck Mr. Abu Zahra had opened a grapefruit-size wound in his right thigh, destroying more than
two inches of his femoral artery, said the surgeon who operated on him, Nihal Sawalha. "It was a very big wound," she said.
"There was almost no blood in his body."
Mr. Abu Zahra's heart and breathing stopped as he arrived at the hospital, Dr. Sawalha said. She resuscitated and stabilized
him. But this morning, after two heart attacks, he died.
Mr. Abu Zahra often called some foreign journalists he met in Jenin to update them on events here, in hopes of drawing
attention to the city's plight and perhaps getting a little work. He telephoned one reporter last month to describe how Israeli
soldiers had seized his father's house for a night, searching it and using it as their headquarters to question the neighbors in
what he called "a kind of violence and humiliation."
He loved journalism, his family said, and he carried three press identification cards, including an Israeli-issued card that
expired in 1996.
He started his own newspaper that year, calling it simply Jenin. His father, Subhi Abu Zahra, a retired English teacher,
proudly displayed copies today.
Imad Abu Zahra interviewed an elderly resident about the city's heritage, and he published another story about a local artist.
But while he criticized Israel's occupation of the West Bank, he also criticized the mayor of Jenin, and for that he was jailed
and his paper shut down, his relatives and others here said.
Mr. Abu Zahra had just been awarded a fellowship to study television journalism in England,
his family said, and he planned to
leave Jenin at the end of the month.
But his relatives had no doubt that he would have returned to cover life here. "He was belonging to his city, intimately," said
his father, his voice steady but his eyes red.
Today, in the town of Deir al Balah in the central Gaza Strip, Israeli forces exchanged fire with Palestinians while arresting
wanted men, the army said. Palestinian officials said Israeli soldiers had opened fire on a police station there, killing one
policeman and Muain al-Adaini, 13.
In the West Bank, Palestinian security officials said Jamal Arrar, 37, died after he was shot by Israeli troops near Qalqilya.
Arabs' Statehood Plan
CAIRO, July 12 - The Arab states, dismayed that the United States has basically ignored their call for a specific timetable for
defusing Arab-Israeli violence, will propose a two-year plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state, senior Arab officials said
today.
The proposal will be made next week during a series of meetings that the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia
plan to hold with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others at the United Nations and in Washington.
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