The episode that drew me to Bethlehem this past week was the assassination of four supposed terrorists there. Three of these men were the target of two rockets fired from Apache helicopters. By SIster Mary

The episode that drew me to Bethlehem this past week was the assassination of four supposed terrorists there. Three of these men were the target of two rockets fired from Apache helicopters. One man, Omar Saada, who the Israelis claim was a Hamas terrorist, was killed along with two other men. When his brother, Isaac Saada, heard the explosions he ran out of his house into his brother’s yard and a third rocket was launched at him and Isaac was killed instantly.

Isaac Saada was not a terrorist. He was a man of peace; a committed teacher at Terra Santa Catholic school in Bethlehem who supported his wife and eleven children on that meager salary. Isaac Saada was also an active member of the Israel-Palestinian Center for Research and Information, an organization involved with peace education. Isaac, had just completed, along with his Israeli and Palestinian colleagues, the writing of a new curriculum on conflict resolution and negotion for Israeli and Palestinian 11th. grade students. Now, thanks to the Israeli Occupation Forces, another man committed to peace education is gone from the Palestinian scene and there is no one to provide the few sheckels that he brought home to his family.

If you heard or read that four terrorists were killed in Bethlehem last week, it was pure misinformation. A man of peace was killed and an innocent girl of four lost her arm due to these assassinations that occured in a country that does not have a death penalty.

The co-director of the Israel-Palestinian Center for Research and Information, Dr. Gershon Baskin, is demanding an apology from the Government of Israel and a recognition of their tragic error. Dr. Baskin is also heading a donation campaign for the welfare of Isaac Saada family, as a legacy of the peace that Isaac dreamed and worked for these many years; a man who lived his entire 51 years under the Israeli Occupation of his land.

Then this past week also saw the massacre of a Palestinian family, including a two and a half month old baby boy from Hebron. Israeli settlers from Hebron quickly claimed responsibility for eliminating some “lice”. The day after the funeral for this family, the Christian Peacemakers’ apartment received six bullets from the roof of the nearby settlement where the Israeli Occupation Force is situated. The previous day while on the street in Hebron, three of the Christian Peacemakers had been attacked by settlers.