Ahmed Dawabsheh, the sole survivor of an arson attack is healing physically, but remains traumatized, months later, and his family’s killers have still not been prosecuted.
Last summer, an arson attack by extremist Jewish settlers in Duma claimed the lives of 3 members of the Dawabsheh family. Today, the sole survivor of the attack, 5-year-old Ahmed Dawabsheh, has stolen the heats of the world as a symbol of peace and innocence. While his physical scars are healing, however, he remains emotionally scarred.
Ahmed’s grandfather, Hussein, told MEMO how Ahmed’s trauma began already while he was in hospital: “As family and friends visited him in the hospital, Ahmed would start asking why his parents have not come to visit yet”. Only months later was he informed of his family’s deaths. Ahmed suffered 60 per cent burns in the attack.
https://youtu.be/YhTe4qAmwjc
While receiving laser treatment on his hand for burn scars, Hussein reported that, “I asked Ahmed why it hurt; he said it was making fire and that it was going to burn him.”
The process of recovery for Ahmed Dawabsheh will be a long road. However, the tragedy is that Israeli settlers are protected by the country’s criminal laws.
A few months after the attack, Amiram Ben-Uliel, 21, a member of a group of young Israeli settlers who set up unauthorized outposts on West Bank hilltops and are accused of carrying out so-called “price tag” attacks against Palestinians and their properties, was charged with the murder of the Dawabsheh family, and an unnamed minor was also charged as an accomplice in the attack.
Israel has also released Jewish extremist Meir Ettinger who was accused of the attack from administrative detention as Israeli state prosecutors decided not to extend his imprisonment.
Director of the Nazareth-based Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, Attorney Omar Khamaisi, complained to MEMO about the slow process of indicting the Israeli assailants and the lack of action against hundreds of settlers who carry out attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Khamaisi stated that unlike Palestinians, Israeli settlers are protected by the country’s criminal laws and Israel would never demolish their homes as a result.
(MEMO, PC)
