Tragedy at Beit Ommar

Beit Ommar is a small Palestinian village on the road from Bethlehem to Hebron. Through faithful friends I have come to know a lovely family there who, when I'm in Palestine, always welcomes me warmly (and feeds me richly). This past Friday, as villagers processed to their cemetery to bury a Beit Ommar citizen who died while in Israeli custody, they were confronted by the Israeli military. The conflict which ensued included the use of tear gas, skunk water, rubber coated bullets and live ammunition by the IDF. Rocks were undoubtedly thrown by Palestinian young people. I will learn more of the circumstances when I visit there next week. The tragedy is that numbers of Palestinians were seriously wounded and 27 year old Ziad Awad was killed, shot in the chest. And it need never have happened. My friends' son (late teens) wrote this:

I just keep losing the good people, 2011, 2014, 2015. Month after month, day after a day we just count our deaths and hold our breath, waiting for our turn. It might be a live bullet, rubber bullet, tear gas grenade or it just can be your bad luck. A bullet that costs 3 shekels will finish your live (sic), suddenly go away and never come back ....
The price of occupation is so expensive, and we as poor people, we have to pay all the expenses, not using money, but using our blood, souls, friends, houses, memories, families and land ....
However ... WE TEACH LIFE SIR, we sing in the funerals of our people, we call the funeral "the wedding", we sing, clap, cry and laugh ..... From our sadness we make happiness, from our tears we grow roses, from our blood we make miracles, for our past we make a brighter future ... we teach life sir.

BEIT OMMAR, APRIL 10, 2015