Remember the Hatuel Family Via G. Katz

Tali Hatuel, 34, and her daughters - Hila, 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7, and Merav, 2 - of Katif in the Gaza Strip were killed when two 'Palestinian' terrorists fired on an Israeli car at the entrance to the Gaza Strip settlement bloc of Gush Katif.

Tali Hatuel and her four daughters were killed when two 'Palestinian' terrorists fired on an Israeli car at the entrance to the Gaza Strip settlement bloc of Gush Katif. They were on their way to campaign against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan. Their white Citroen station wagon spun off the road after the initial shooting, then the attackers approached the vehicle and shot the occupants dead at close range. The Hatuels' car was riddled with bullets, and the carpet inside was stained with blood. The girls were killed hugging one another. On the car was a bumper sticker saying, "Uprooting the settlements, victory for terror."

Another Israeli civilian, a resident of Ohad in the Eshkol region, traveling in a separate car, suffered moderate gunfire wounds and two soldiers were wounded before the terrorists were killed. Fatah and Islamic Jihad claimed joint responsibility for the attack.

Tali, nee Malka, originally from Ashkelon, settled with her husband David in Katif 12 years ago. As a social worker for the Gaza Coast Regional Council, it was she who would comfort families of terror victims on the death of their loved ones. Tali was eight months pregnant, and was looking forward to the birth of her first son. The three older girls studied at a school in Atzmona where there father, David Hatuel was the principal.

Standing over the shrouded bodies of his wife and daughters, David Hatuel asked for their forgiveness for spending time away from home lobbying against the plan to pull out from Gaza. "On Friday the girls drew me a picture and wrote 'Daddy, we are proud of what you are doing for the home where we were born'," he said. "You were my flowers and I will not forget you," he said, and added, "Tali was a woman of valor. All the responsibility for the family was on her shoulders."

Tali Hatuel and her four daughters - Hila, Hadar, Roni, and Merav - were laid to rest side by side in Ashkelon. Several thousand mourners attended the Hatuel funerals the same evening. They are survived by husband and father David Hatuel, Tali's parents, two sisters, Orit and Sigalit, and brother, Yuval.

It was reported in various newspapers that official Voice of 'Palestine' radio hailed the gunmen as “heroic martyrs”. The radio station repeatedly used the term is tish-had (heroic martyrdom) and mustash-hidin (heroic martyrs) to describe the act of the “two youths”. After reporting the attackers’ names it repeated that they were “heroic martyrs". The 'Palestinian' Authority, the so-called peace partner, has remained silent about the attack.

Between 16 and 30 August 2005, Sharon controversially expelled 9,480 Jewish 'settlers' from 21 settlements in Gaza and four settlements in Samaria.

Lukas Schneider

Sources:
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
journalist Michael Widlanski


Israeli writer Naomi Ragen :

“We will not add five more numbers to those slain. We will not turn the Hatuel family into a statistic. We will not forget those five bodies wrapped in white shrouds, lowered into the ground. The four little Jewish girls, and their mother, pregnant and about to give birth to her first son. We will not call them “settler” and thus say: it is all right for armed men to put a gun to the head of a two year old and shoot her twice, after letting her watch her mother die. It is not all right for Yasser Arafat to praise the men he sent out to murder them as “heroic martyrs”. We will not allow the international conspiracy of the world press to hide what happened here, to succeed.
Remember Tali. Remember her daughters. Hila, Hadar, Roni, Merav. Remember. Say the names on every street corner. Shout out your anger, your disgust. Cry out for justice. Don’t let them be forgotten. Never. Never. Never. Never. Never."