Middle East - AP
Paralyzed Palestinian Man Killed
Date: Mon, Jun 07, 2004
By NASSER NASSER, Associated Press Writer
QALANDIA, West Bank - Arafat Yaacoub survived so many shootings during the Israel-Palestinian conflict that his family felt God was watching over him.
But on Sunday, Israeli soldiers shot Yaacoub for the fourth time, and killed him.
Witnesses said Yaacoub, 31, left a paraplegic from a previous shooting, was drinking coffee near the entrance to the Qalandia refugee camp when soldiers opened fire on stone-throwing Palestinian youths.
A stray bullet hit Yaacoub in the head, killing him. The Israeli army said it was investigating the shooting.
Thousands marched through the camp on Monday, some carrying Yaacoub's body and his wheelchair, during his funeral procession.
"They killed him many times," his brother Adel said of the Israelis.
Yaacoub was first wounded at the age of 14 during the first uprising in 1987, when he joined a group of boys throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. The soldiers shot him in the leg, according to his brother.
As a member of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s Fatah (news - web sites) movement, he was jailed by Israel for 10 months in 1991, his brother said.
In 1992, during another clash between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, he was shot three times in the back, badly wounded and left paralyzed from the waist down, his brother said.
After he recovered, Yaacoub who needed to get around in a wheelchair, left Fatah and took a job at a holistic medicine store in nearby Ramallah. When he saved enough money, he bought a special taxi he could drive with hand controls and began transporting passengers.
In 2002, Yaacoub was sitting in his taxi in a village west of Ramallah, when it was raked with bullets from an Israeli tank. One bullet struck him in the chest, badly wounding him yet again, his brother said.
In recent years, despite his wounds, Yaacoub got married and started a family. He had three children, including a newborn son.
Adel Yaacoub said his brother may have survived his previous wounds because of a divine plan.
"God didn't want him to die ... because he wanted him to marry and have children," he said.
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