'Little bomber' fascinates Israeli media

[Gość: ArabkillArabChild]

'Little bomber' fascinates Israeli media


In the glare of the media
The case of a 14-year-old Palestinian boy captured wearing a vest packed with
explosives at a West Bank checkpoint makes the headlines in Israel's media
and prompts condemnation of the people who sent him out to die.

Viewers saw footage of what Israeli television called a "mentally challenged"
boy stopped at a checkpoint south of Nablus.

The boy, Husam Abdu, was shown standing at a distance from the Israeli
soldiers whilst he was instructed in Hebrew how to remove the vest.

'Frightened child'

"After a roughly 40-minute drama in full view of the cameras filming a
frightened child wearing an eight-kilogram explosive vest, Husam managed to
take off the explosive charge," the TV reported.

In the Israeli press on Thursday pictures of "the little bomber", as they
call him, dominate the front pages.

Some show him dressed in an oversized army jacket, others picture him bare-
chested, having removed the suicide belt at the roadblock.

I wanted virgins in heaven

Yediot Aharonot

The boy became shy, Jerusalem Post reports, asking the Israeli troops, "Do I
have to take my clothes off here?"

The paper praises the "quick-thinking" of the Israeli paratroopers who
noticed the boy.

"It is sad and tragic," a battalion commander tells the paper. "My soldiers
spotted Abdu as he pushed through the line of Palestinians waiting to undergo
inspection."

"Seeing the soldiers' weapons, he became frightened and told the soldiers he
was scared," the commander said, adding that the soldiers' quick action
also "saved the lives of 200 Palestinian men, women, and children who were at
the roadblock".

"Blowing myself up is the only chance I've got to have sex with 72 virgins in
the Garden of Eden," The Post quoted Husam as saying his handlers had told
him.

His family said the teenager had acted strangely on Tuesday, inexplicably
handing out sweets, getting his hair cut in the style his mother liked, and
telling her he would do anything she wanted.

"You are never like this," The Post quoted her as saying, "What's happened?"

He replied: "I just want you to be happy with me."

Unloved

"I wanted virgins in heaven," is the headline in the Hebrew paper Yediot
Aharonot. It quotes the boy as telling his interrogators: "My teacher told me
what was waiting for me in heaven so I decided to commit suicide."

The boy reportedly said he was scared when the belt was put on him. "Now I'm
afraid my mother will be angry with me," he added.

I wanted to be the man

Ma'ariv
Yediot Aharonot asks the teenager: "What went through your mind, Husam, a
second before you were stopped at the roadblock? Did your legs tremble with
fear, or with the weight of the belt? Did cold sweat drench your body? Where
was your mother?"

It tells him: "Children, Husam, should not be in paradise, they should be in
the playground."

Ma'ariv focuses on the boy's desire to be a hero. "I wanted to be the man" is
its headline.

The paper says Husam told the soldiers questioning him that he was willing to
commit suicide "because people don't love me".

A Ma'ariv commentator compares those who "send boys to explode and turn into
pulp" to "Satan".

And a Yediot columnist asks: "Who poisoned his soul? Who planted in him the
tons of hatred that made leave home to kill and get killed?

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and
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