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Murder of Shalhevet Pass
Part of the Second Intifada militancy campaign

The attack site
LocationAvraham Avinu neighborhood in Hebron
DateMarch 26, 2001
4:00 pm (GMT+2)
Attack typeShooting attack
WeaponsSniper rifle
Deathsa ten-month-old Israeli infant (Shalhevet Pass)
PerpetratorsLone Palestinian assailant (Mahmud Amru), member of the Tanzim militant group
File:Shalhevet Pass.jpg
Shalhevet Pass with her mother.

The murder of Shalhevet Pass was a shooting attack which was carried out on March 26, 2001 in Hebron, in which a Palestinian sniper killed the ten-month-old Israeli infant Shalhevet Pass. The event shocked the Israeli public, partly because an investigation ruled that the sniper had deliberately aimed for the baby. The murder became a "potent Israeli symbol as an innocent victim of the raging violence".

The murder

On March 26, 2001, at 4:00 pm, Shalhevet was shot in her stroller while her parents were accompanying her from a parking lot by the Avraham Avinu neighborhood in Hebron, where she and her family lived. A Palestinian sniper resumed firing, after a ten minute lull, from the Abu Sneinah neighborhood on the hill opposite. Shalhevet was killed instantly. The baby's mother grabbed her and ran with her, only to find that blood was running down her hands. One of the sniper's bullets penetrated the baby's head, passing through her skull, and hit her father as well. Shalhevet's young father Yitzchak Pass, a student, who had been pushing the stroller, was also seriously wounded minutes later by two bullets.

Press accounts indicated that at the time of the shooting: "The ... playground was swarming with children because new sand had been delivered to the sandbox." According to settler accounts, another girl playing in the sandbox nearby had a bullets pass through her clothing and narrowly escaped injury, while a third had her finger grazed by a bullet.

Aftermath

The murder of Shalhevet Pass, which came relatively early in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, produced vocal outrage in Israel and abroad. The nation mourned the killing of the baby.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon condemned the attack and sent his condolences to the Pass family. Sharon also stated that he saw the Palestinian Authority responsible for the attack.

The Jewish community in Hebron demanded that the Israeli army reoccupy the Abu Sneineh neighborhood in Hebron, and the Pass family even stated that they would not bury their baby until the IDF would reoccupy the Abu Sneineh neighborhood.

After the murder of Shalhevet Pass, the Jewish community in Hebron looted and burned shops at the western area of Hebron as well as buildings of the Waqf. During the two months that followed the murder of Shalhevet Pass three shooting attacks were carried out against Palestinians vehicles in which one Palestinian was killed and seven were wounded. An unknown body named "Gilad Shalhevet" took responsibility for the attacks and stated that they were carried out in revenge for the murder of Shalhevet Pass.

In 2003, Yitzhak Pass was captured along with his brother, Matityahu Shabu, while they had explosives in their possession. As a result, Yitzhak was convicted of possession of weapons and was sentenced to two years in prison. The court noted that it was not proven that Yitzhak and Matityahu's true intention was ideologically motivated and designed to avenge his daughter by harming Arabs, but because the defendants did not provide an explanation for their actions the court concluded that they possessed the explosives for an illegal purpose.

The capture and the trial of the killer

The Palestinian Authority initially arrested the sniper but released him after a short while. On December 9, 2002 the Shin Bet managed to capture the sniper – the Tanzim member Mahmud Amru.

In December 2004 a military court convicted the killer and sentenced him to three life terms.

According to the Israeli government, an investigation concluded that the professional snipers had intentionally targeted the baby. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said:

The fact that they could pick off the baby and then the father makes this a hideous, deliberate, cold-blooded murder. Snipers are not just gun-toting youth... If Arafat had wanted, the sniper would not have been there.

In the verdict the judges expressed their shock of the brutality of the murder:

"It was enough for one bullet, fired from a sniper rifle, to end the life of the infant Shalhevet Pass, who up to that event was unknown to the wide public, and just lived her life as all other children, until one day as the evening came she was hit in her head, and her she died, and Shalhevet whom was still small and and in her infant stage, was sentenced to death by a vile killer whom intentionally, using a Telescopic sight, pulled the trigger. The picture of the shot baby is on our table, is engraved in our minds and does not give peace to our souls. We can not understand and we can not accept the unbearable ease in which the killer decided to harm a helpless person... We the judges are only humans and we can not see anything else but image which emerges is our senses, an image full of hate, blood and bereavement. We must not accept this image and we need to do everything we can to condemn it."

Reactions

Official reactions

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to itadding to it or making an edit request. (September 2011)
Memorial to Shalhevet Pass, Hebron

Reactions in the media

The Associated Press ran the story with the headline "Jewish toddler dies in West Bank".

The Voice of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority's official radio station, reported that the report of the girl's shooting death was a lie, and that instead the girl's mother had murdered her own baby.

In popular culture

A song was dedicated to the memory of "Baby Shalhevet", sung by Avraham Fried at a concert in Hebron, and was written by his brother Rabbi Manis Friedman.

See also

References

  1. Yonah Alexander (2003). Palestinian secular terrorism: profiles of Fatah, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
  2. ^ Peter Bouckaert (2001). Center of the storm: a case study of human rights abuses in Hebron District. Human Rights Watch. pp. 64–65. ISBN 1-56432-260-2. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
  3. Deborah Sontag, Israeli Baby's Funeral Becomes Focus of Settler Militancy , at New York Times, April 2, 2001.
  4. ^ "Target: Israeli Children". Israeli Ministry of Education. In the afternoon,Yitzhak and Orya Pass took a walk with their daughter Shalhevet from their home in the Beit Hadassah neighborhood to the Avraham Avinu neighborhood where Orya's parents lived. They heard shots when they reached the entrance to the Avraham Avinu neighborhood. Yitzhak fell. Cite error: The named reference "education" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  5. ^ Morey Schwartz (March 26, 2001). Where's My Miracle?. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
  6. Nechemia Coopersmith, Shraga Simmons. Israel: Life In The Shadow Of Terror. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
  7. ^ Giulio Meotti (2010). A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism. Retrieved March 19, 2011.
  8. Charles W. Greenbaum, Philip E. Veerman, Naomi Bacon-Shnoor (2006). Protection of children during armed political conflict: a multidisciplinary perspective. Retrieved March 16, 2011.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. Daniel Gordis (2003). Home to Stay: One American Family's Chronicle of Miracles and Struggles in Contemporary Israel. Random House. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
  10. Judy Lash Balint (2001). Jerusalem diaries: in tense times. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
  11. Mark Matthews (2007). Lost years: Bush, Sharon, and failure in the Middle East. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
  12. Nachman Seltzer (2006). The Link. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
  13. BBC Monitoring Newsfile, Dec 16, 2004, quoting Ma'ariv web site, Tel Aviv, in English 16 Dec 04
  14. Margot Dudkevitch (16 Dec 2004). "Baby's murderer gets three life sentences". Jerusalem Post. p. 2. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  15. "Jewish Toddler Dies in West Bank". Associated Press. March 26, 2001. Retrieved March 19, 2011.
  16. Fiamma Nirenstein (2005). Terror: the new anti-semitism and the war against the West. Smith and Kraus. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
  17. AMIT magazine. 2001. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
  18. "Palestinian radio reports Israeli mother killed baby". Jweekly. April 6, 2001. Retrieved March 19, 2011.
  19. Michael Chabin (June 15, 2001). "Media spawns anti-Semitic propaganda". Jewish News of Greater Phoenix. Retrieved March 19, 2011.
  20. "News at a Glance". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. April 4, 2001. Retrieved March 19, 2011.
  21. http://www.col.org.il/pics/inbox/.146023_0631634.wma. Retrieved March 16, 2011. {{cite book}}: |url= missing title (help)

External links

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