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Druse town suffers from rocket fire
On Friday, the residents of the mainly Druse town of Peki'in were getting ready to celebrate the marriage of one of their sons to a young woman from nearby Beit Jann. The wedding was to be held in a hall in a neighborhood located three kilometers from the Old Town, where men who had served in the army had been given plots of land to build their homes. Three hours before the feast, two Katyusha rockets fell on the neighborhood as the guests began to gather. One rocket scored a direct hit on the roof of the home where Salman and Dina Ali live with their children Hussein, Rana and Sari. The rocket exploded on the roof, boring a large hole and landing in a bathroom on the top floor of the two-story house, where it created another large hole in the floor. The warhead released tiny metal balls that ripped through everything in their path, destroying a water tank, an air conditioner and a pergola of vines. The explosion also blew out the wall of a staircase leading from the second floor to the roof. A few minutes earlier, another rocket had exploded immediately in front of a neighbor's house a few meters away. Altogether, seven houses sustained damage from the two blasts. According to Ali's nephews, Anan and Alan Kheir, their aunt and uncle had been lucky. A few minutes before the rocket hit their home, they had debated whether to eat upstairs or downstairs. In the end, they chose downstairs, a decision which may have saved their lives. Galib Kheir, head of the town's tourism department, wanted to know why no members of the media had came to see the damage that Peki'in had suffered over the past six days. It is a question also asked by town engineer Halim Muhana. Underlying the question, which is asked with obvious resentment or hurt, is the unspoken accusation that no one cares about Peki'in because it isn't Jewish. The leaders of Peki'in stress that Hizbullah does not distinguish between Jews and Druse. "As far as Nasrallah is concerned, we are all Israelis," said Galib Kheir. "He doesn't care who he hits just as long as he hits." Posted by: Fred 2006-07-19 |
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