Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
20 May
HOW JEWISH MURDERERS OF PALESTINIANS ARE TREATED IN ISRAELI PRISON
On this day in 1990, 21-year-old Ami Popper killed seven Palestinian workers and wounded sixteen. Thirteen more Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in demonstrations to protest the racist mass shooting. Popper’s life sentence was commuted by Presidential amnesty. He married three times, fathered three children, and was involved in a road traffic accident during one of many 48-hour breaks in his sentence. His family receive financial support from an Israeli right-wing NGO, Honenu.
كيف يتم معاملة القتلة اليهود (قتلة الفلسطينيين) في السجون الإسرائيلية؟
20 مايو
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 1990 ، قتل آمي بوبر البالغ من العمر 21 عامًا سبعة عمال فلسطينيين وجرح ستة عشر. وقتلت القوات الإسرائيلية 13 فلسطينيا آخرين في مظاهرات احتجاجا على إطلاق النار الجماعي العنصري. وخفف عفو رئاسي عقوبة السجن المؤبد بحق بوبر. تزوج بوبر ثلاث مرات ، وأنجب ثلاثة أطفال ، وتورط في حادث مروري خلال واحدة من العديد من فترات الإفراج لمدة 48 ساعة خلال مدة عقوبته. تتلقى عائلته دعما ماليا من منظمة يمينية إسرائيلية غير حكومية تدعى هونينو.
“We stand here already for 13 years,” said Najah, a young Palestinian from Khan Yunis. “My father stood here waiting for work and brought us, the children, to wait with him, and now I wait here, too. We built a big part of this city, but today, after they killed our friends and let them lie in the garbage, in the sun, until their last breath, until the ambulance came at last, even after that the policemen beat us up. So what do you think we should do?” (Yediot Ahronot, 5/21/90).
I was standing for two hours in the ‘slave market junction’ of Rishon Lezion,” wrote Serna, “and during that time I did not see any sign of sorrow.”
Yigal Serna wrote of his visit to the killer's home and interviews with his friends. ‘Yesterday night,” one of them named Gideon recounted, ‘six of us guys were sitting up after midnight in Barak’s house…We decided that Ami had made only two mistakes: one, that he didn’t kill all [the Palestinians] that were there, and two, that he turned himself in rather than try to make a run for it. He could have come over to me… I would have taken good care of him.’”
The five murder victims and their stories:
Zayed Zidan Abdul Majid Imour, 33, of Khan Yunis, married with three children. After the funeral, soldiers raided his house and fired tear gas at mourners causing his wife to lose consciousness; Ziad Musa Mohammed Swei’d,
20, married, of Rafah and Yahya’s brother. After his funeral, soldiers came to his home and beat the young men they found there.
Omar Hammad Ahmed Dahlit 24, of Rafah, married. Two days after his funeral, soldiers led by the military commander raided the family’s house, beat relatives, tore the deceased’s photograph and damaged the furniture.
Abdul Rahim Salem Barakeh, 43 of Bani Suhailia, married with five children. After his funeral, at ll:30 pm, soldiers raided his house and his family was beaten; Yusef Ibrahim Mansour Abu Daqqa, 36, from Bani Suhella, married with seven children. Two days after his funeral, soldiers raided his family’s house, killing one person and injuring ten others.
The two others who were killed and whose homes and families were left alone to mourn, at least temporarily, were Zaki Mohammad Hamdan Qadih, 35, of Abasan Kabira, married with nine children and Suleiman Abu Razeq Mohammad Abu Anza, from the same village.
Two days after the massacre, seven-year old Mustafa Awas Mahmud al Fajem of Bani Suhaila in Gaza, was playing with other children about 100 yards from his house and nearly 1,000 yards from the main street.
A border guard in a vehicle on the street shouted: “Whoever wants to die can throw a stone,” and “You bastards, seven were killed at Rishon Lezion and I am going to kill the eighth.”
An eyewitness, a relative of Mustafa, told the Palestinian Human Rights Information Center (PHRIC} that one border guard got out of the jeep “took his gun, and fired one bullet towards the children; it hit Mustafa on the forehead. Then another soldier shot several rubber [over steel] bullets towards the children. Mustafa died the next day.
When his father went to the hospital he was beaten by Israeli soldiers and four of his relatives arrested.