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Abdallah Quran, 12, a resident of the Balata refugee camp east of Nablus, reportedly makes his living by transferring bags from one side of the army roadblock to the other.
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| By Ellis Shuman March 16, 2004 |
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An innocent-looking 12-year-old Palestinian boy approached the IDF's roadblock at Hawara, south of Nablus, yesterday, and tried to get past soldiers there with a school bag and other packages. An alert Border Policewoman saw that the bag was heavier than usual, and noticed suspicious wires inside. The Tanzim terrorists who dispatched the boy on his mission tried unsuccessfully to blow up their bomb near the soldiers.
Abdallah Quran, a resident of the Balata refugee camp east of Nablus, reportedly makes his living by transferring bags from one side of the army roadblock to the other. "Yesterday I came to the barricade as usual and started shouting 'who wants to transfer their bags to the other side?'" he said.
"A few people piled on their bags, and I waited for a few more because I get paid for every bag. A few people put their bags on my cart, and I don't remember who put the bag with the bomb," he said, quoted in the Israeli media.
Some news reports listed Abdallah's age as ten and his home as being in the village of Hawara.
Border Policewoman Moran Boknat saw that Abdallah's school bag looked relatively heavy for the young boy. "The first two bags were full of clothes, but then I asked him to open the backpack and I immediately realized something wasn't right," she said.
"I opened the zipper and saw inside three white wires and a plate on which bullets were pasted. I ordered the boy to stand still and called the roadblock commander," she said.
"A military policeman lifted the bag, which was heavy, and placed it on the table," Lt.-Col. Guy, a Paratroopers Brigade battalion commander told the Jerusalem Post. "The soldier noticed the boy was uneasy and, when she questioned him, he told her the bag didn't belong to him and he had been asked to take it through. She immediately alerted officers, and with the other soldiers, distanced everyone from the area.
"When the boy's dispatchers saw he was being detained, they dialed the cellular phone inside the bag meant to detonate the bomb, but it failed to go off," he said.
Two Tanzim terrorists based in Nablus exploited the boy's innocent appearance and used him, without his knowledge, in an attempt to pass the explosive device through the checkpoint, government officials said. The terrorists apparently planned to detonate the device by calling the cellular phone inside the bag in order to harm soldiers by using the boy as an unwitting suicide terrorists, the officials said.
According to media reports, the bag contained 7-10 kilograms (15-22 lbs) of explosives. Sappers detonated the bomb safely in a controlled explosion.
Abdallah Quran was detained for questioning, but was later released when it was determined that he didn't know he had been asked to transport a bomb. Earlier in the day, the Shin Bet intelligence service had issued a warning of possible attempts by terrorists to leave on suicide missions from Nablus.
"We're not going to do anything with a boy like that, an innocent kid trying to earn his daily bread. Someone apparently promised him money for getting the bomb across," Lt.Col. Guy said.
Guy said it is common for terrorist groups to use children or women as couriers for arms and explosives. "We have caught a 39-year-old mother of seven... with an explosive belt under her clothes," he said, adding that the woman was on her way into Israel from the West Bank when she was caught, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Since the start of the Intifada in 2000, 29 suicide attacks have been perpetrated by minors under the age of 18, officials said. Since May 2001, 22 shootings attacks and attacks using explosive devices were carried out by youths under the age of 18. Since January 2001, more than 40 Palestinian minors have been arrested for involvement in attempts to perpetrate suicide attacks that were ultimately foiled, the officials said.
Attorney Nala Atya, a human rights activist from Ramallah, told Army Radio this morning that no one in Palestinian society supports involving children in the conflict, but the harsh reality, despair and poverty had brought some to see their use as legitimate.
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