Fulfilling Their National Duty

Tonight's top story from Gaza, originally reported as "Palestinians say Israeli shelling killed 3 militants"

Four Palestinian militants died late Sunday, apparently when a bomb they were planting went off in northern Gaza. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Israel could still build Jewish settlements in defiance of a U.S.-backed peace plan.*

At first, Palestinian security officials said Israeli tanks fired at a group of militants from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, affiliated with the Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah, killing three men and wounding four others, in the northeast Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. Another died later in a hospital, doctors said.

Later, however, loudspeaker trucks drove through the area saying that the four died while "fulfilling their national duty," a phrase used in the past to announce accidental deaths.

*Non-sequiturs seem to be permitted only when they are used to divert attention from the fact that Yassir Arafat's "mainstream Fatah" is planting bombs "in defiance of a U.S. backed peace plan". And no, the deaths were not "accidental", they were merely premature.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 23, 2003 06:00 AM