DUMA: The father of a Palestinian toddler killed when their home was firebombed by Jewish extremists last week died on Saturday from injuries he suffered in the attack, prompting a Hamas call for “confrontation”, according to foreign media.
The July 31 attack in the village of Duma led to angry Palestinian protests and an international outcry over Israel’s failure to curb violence by hardline Jewish settlers.
Saad Dawabsha died in hospital in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba where he was being treated for third-degree burns for the past eight days, Palestinian official Ghassan Daghlas said.
The head of the hospital’s intensive care unit said his prospects had been slim from the outset, reportedly.
“He arrived early on Friday a week ago by helicopter in very bad condition, critical,” Motti Klein told Israeli public radio.
“With burns covering 80 per cent of the body, chances of survival are very, very slim, almost zero,” he said.
“He underwent a number of skin grafts but, despite everything, his vital systems collapsed”.
Dawabsha’s wife Riham and four-year-old son Ahmed are still fighting for their lives in another Israeli hospital, near Tel Aviv, after the attack that killed 18-month-old Ali.
However, a doctor said Ahmed was showing some encouraging signs.
“He is conscious at the moment, communicating with relatives,” Marina Rubinstein told the radio.
“Yesterday he was licking ice lollies and was pleased with that”. “His condition is still serious,” she added. “He faces a large number of operations and a very long period of hospitalisation”. The Dawabsha family’s small brick and cement home was gutted by the fire, and a Jewish Star of David spray-painted on a wall along with the words “revenge” and “long live the Messiah”.
“Nothing will stop these murderous settler attacks and… we cannot wait until they come into our villages and our homes,” Hossam Badran, spokesman of the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas, wrote on Facebook from his base in Qatar on Saturday.
“Our people in the West Bank have only one choice: that of open and comprehensive confrontation against the occupation”.
Israeli media reported that the army was on alert for possible unrest in the occupied territory and for “Palestinian revenge attacks”. The United Nations has called for restraint.
“Political, community and religious leaders on all sides should work together and not allow extremists to escalate the situation and take control of the political agenda,” wrote UN peace coordinator Nickolay Mladenov.
“I reiterate the secretary general’s call for the perpetrators of this heinous terrorist act, which was universally condemned, to be brought swiftly to justice,” he added.As Saad Dawabsha was buried in Duma on Saturday afternoon, a family friend said Israeli authorities were complicit in such violence. “It’s a crime committed by the settlers but with the agreement of the occupation,” Anwar Dawabsha said.
“It isn’t possible that Israel with all its army and its intelligence services still has no information on this attack,” he said.
Several thousand mourners turned out to lay Dawabsha to rest, many carrying Palestinian flags, others with portraits of little Ali and the rest of the family.
