In March 2004 16 year old would-be Palestinian suicide bomber, Husam Abdu, was arrested at the Hawara Israeli check point in the occupied West Bank. At the time, the incident was presented to the world as evidence of the "evil" that the Israeli government was confronting, yet BBC reporter Orla Guerin's description of the affair as "Israel's cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes" was much more accurate.
Israel's -'14 yr old bomber stunt' - backfires


It turns out that 14 yr old Husam Abdu from Nablus was mentallly retarded and drugged. A stranger offered him $20 to wear the belt.

Six news teams had advance notice. Cameras were rolling as the child approached

The 1st story

The boy was a religious nut that belong to Hamas - he did it to get 72 virgins in heaven, the IDF said - as he approached the check point the Jewish soldiers stopped him. His controllers saw this and tried to detonate the bomb but the cell phone failed.

The 2nd story

The second story is the Jewish soldiers were informed he was coming - they kept Arabs away from checkpoint - next the IDF notified the press and the kid approached alone. The IDF sent a robot to meet him.

Palestinian teenager in the oversized jacket approached Israeli soldiers, who had received a tip about a suicide bomber at this crowded checkpoint yesterday. Source

A few weeks ago, another boy from Nablus, Muhammad Kuraan, made headlines when the Israeli army presented him to the media as a child who had been dispatched to blow himself up at an Israeli roadblock.

Residents of Shechem, including the boy himself, now refute Israel's version of events, and say the bag Abdullah Quran was transporting did not contain any explosives.

The IDF wouldn't let today's bomber be interviewed.

Israel 'fabricated' child-bomber story

By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
Thursday 25 March 2004

Palestinian leaders have accused Israel of fabricating a story about a 14-year-old Palestinian boy who planned to blow himself up.

The Israeli army said he was caught wearing an explosive belt at an army roadblock in the northern West Bank.

The boy, identified as Husam Abdu from Nablus, was shown on TV screens around the world, with an explosive belt strapped to his waist.

The Israeli army said the boy told interrogators that his dispatchers promised that he would have sex with 72 virgins in heaven soon after his death.

"We know for sure this is a fabricated story from A to Z. Would you believe that a 13 or 14-year old would agree to blow up himself in return for a hundred shekels which he would receive after his death?

"It seems to me that the Israelis are bad liars as well," said Yaqub Shahin, a director-general of the Palestinian Authority ministry of information.

Painting a 'terrorist' picture

In an interview with Aljazeera.net, Shahin accused Israel of seeking to justify slaughtering Palestinian children by spreading the false impression that they are used as human bombers.
"Their [Israel's] goal is to besmirch Palestinian childhood so that when they slaughter the children, the world won't feel sorry for them," he said.

Arab Knesset member Muhammad Baraka has also voiced "serious doubts" about the veracity of the Israeli narrative.

"I have very serious doubts about the whole story. I can't give the Israeli army the benefit of the doubt." However, Baraka urged all parties to "keep children away from this sinister and bloody conflict"

"Using children as bombs is infinitely diabolical. It is totally inconsistent with all religious, moral and human values."

Fatah denial
The armed wing of Fatah, the Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, has denied any involvement in the incident, accusing Israel of "concocting the whole story for the purpose of justifying the killing of more Palestinian children".

The Israeli newspaper Yedeot Ahranot reported on Thursday that Abdu told Shin Beth interrogators that an anonymous person had promised him 100 shekels if he blew himself up in the midst of Israeli soldiers. [...]

A few weeks ago, another boy from Nablus, Muhammad Kuraan, made headlines when the Israeli army presented him to the media as a child who had been dispatched to blow himself up at an Israeli roadblock.

However, when the boy returned home, he reportedly told his family and relatives "Jews told me to do this or else they would kill me."

Aljazeera.net asked the Israeli army spokesman in Tel Aviv to explain why Abdu would accept 100 shekels to get blown up and what good the money could possibly do?

The army was also asked to explain why it had TV cameras ready at the roadblock more than two hours before the event.

Despite two hours of waiting, the army failed to provide an answer.

Notice in the above that the news reporters had obviously been tipped off and were ready and waiting for the boy to arrive. Obviously this was an Israeli army manufactured "suicide bombing". It makes one wonder how many other suicide bombings Sharon and the IDF were responsible for.


Comment: This is "By Way of Deception", the tactics of Sharon and the Israeli Mossad, although the clumsy way in which the "operation" was carried out suggests that it was probably the brain child of the IDF. Who now can deny that Sharon and the Israeli government want this war? As we have been saying for many months, when your goal is war at all costs, you are obliged to fight it on both sides, create an enemy and stage attacks so that you can then retaliate. This tactic is by no means new, but is rather a very simple and effective method to crush all those that are deemed a threat to the interests of a given group - whatever those interests may be. We have seen this tactic used to great effect on September 11th 2001 in New York, which was an Israeli "false flag" operation, carried out by the Mossad, and was but one in the long and ignoble history of Israeli secret services, as they wage their wars of deception.



Child-killing

The controversy of using children in the Israeli-Palestinian strife underscores the brazen ugliness of the conflict.

According to human rights groups operating in the occupied territories, the Israeli army has killed hundreds of Palestinian children since the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada more than three and a half years ago.

According to a spokeswoman for the East Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (HRMG), the Israeli army and paramilitary Jewish settlers have killed 263 Palestinian children from age 0-14 and 236 minors from the age of 15-18 during the ongoing Intifada.

The total number of Palestinians killed by Israel since the outbreak of the Intifada is estimated at 2670.

The figures for the injured and maimed are believed to be in the thousands.

The number of Israelis killed by Palestinians during the same period is around 838, including soldiers, settlers and civilians.

Israel claims its army does not target Palestinian civilians deliberately but admits, rather grudgingly, that the killing is carried out knowingly.

However, human rights groups argue forcefully that, in the final analysis, killing knowingly is killing deliberately.