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Report: Honor killings on the rise in Gaza

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, August 28, 2006

GAZA CITY — Killings of Palestinian women by their families have increased in the Gaza Strip.

"Killings committed allegedly to protect family honor have escalated in the past two months," the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said.

[On Sunday, Palestinian abductors released two employees of the U.S. news network Fox. On Monday, an Israeli air strike killed four PA officers aligned with Hamas in Gaza City, Middle East Newsline reported.]

The killings were said to have included the shooting of women by their relatives in the Palestinian Authority security services. So far, nobody has been arrested.

On Aug. 22, a woman was killed in the central Gaza Strip near the Nusseirat refugee camp. PCHR said she was shot by her brother, an officer in the PA Preventive Security Apparatus "allegedly to protect his family honor."

On Aug. 9, the center said, PA police found the bodies of two girls in Sawarha, west of Nusseirat. The brothers of the girls were said to have shot them dead in honor killings.

The killings came amid a rise in clan violence in the Gaza Strip. On Aug. 22, two families in Dir El Balah engaged in a gun battle in which one person was killed and two others were injured.

"PCHR calls upon the Palestinian National Authority, represented by the attorney general, to investigate such crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice," the center said in an Aug. 23 statement.

On Sunday, PA spokesman Ghazi Hamad blamed Palestinians for the chaos in the Gaza Strip. Hamad said the Israeli withdrawal in September 2005 created new training bases for insurgency groups rather than economic opportunity for Palestinians.

"We didn't succeed in preserving the victory of liberating Gaza," Hamad said. "The reality in the Gaza Strip today is one of neglect, sadness and failure. When someone errs we are scared to criticize him to avoid being accused of being against the resistance."


Copyright © 2006 East West Services, Inc.

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