Palestinian shot dead in Gaza while driving pregnant wife to hospital
AFP
Date: 01-13-05
GAZA CITY (AFP) - A 23-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli soldiers as he drove his pregnant wife to hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip.
Alaa Hassuna was killed in the flashpoint Beit Lahiya area shortly after leaving the family home in a nearby Bedouin village at around dawn.
His wife was also wounded as was another passenger in the vehicle, hospital officials and security sources said Thursday.
An Israeli military source said soldiers had been questioning a group of Palestinians as part of an arrest operation when the vehicle was seen driving towards them at speed.
Troops then opened fire, with the source telling AFP that the shots were fired into open fields and not at the vehicle itself which subsequently crashed.
"The vehicle was speeding towards the force, seemingly about to carry out some form of attack," added the source. "The IDF (army) opened fire and the vehicle veered off the road and crashed.
"They were were specifically deterrent warning shots fired at open field and not at the car."
However Mahmud al-Asali, director of the Beith Lahiya hospital, said that Hassuna died of fatal gunshot injuries.
"He was shot in the right eye and the bullet exited from the back of the brain. There were no scratches to show that he had been in an accident," he told AFP.
His wife sustained a bullet wound in the hand while the second passenger was slighly injured by a gunshot wound to the leg, Asali added.
The latest death brings the overall toll since the September 2000 start of the Palestinian uprising to 4,685, including 3,637 and 973 Israelis.
Source
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