EXAMPLE: Feature approach to a second-day, breaking hard news story

October 1, 2000

By Nomi Morris
Knight Ridder Newspapers

BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip – Like viewers around the world, Amal al-Dirra saw her terrified son die on television as his father tried to shield him from Israeli gunfire.

“I went crazy. I was screaming and crying,” the 34-year-old mother of seven recounted Sunday, as dozens of mourners filled the bare, concrete house where her son Mohammed was born 12 years ago.

Now, as her husband lies critically wounded in a nearby hospital, Amal is sedated. Five little birds that Muhammed’s fifth grade teacher gave him, jump and chirp happily in their cage.

Outside Muhammed’s face is already on posters under the heading the Martyr of al-Aqsa. The morning paper published the photo sequence of him crouched behind a cement block and then shot. It is the enduring image of the latest eruption of Palestinian anger and frustration. It may be remembered as the last violent gasp that propels the sides toward a peace treaty or the beginning of a new protracted uprising.

Muhammed’s mother and his brother and cousins remember him as an active, outgoing kid who liked to play soccer and go for a ride with his dad or run errands for older relatives who worked in the neighborhood.

Contrary to Israeli army claims that Muhammed and his father Jamal were among the protesters that assaulted their outpost outside a Jewish settlement in Gaza, Amal says neither her husband nor son were political or even intending to observe the riots that began in Gaza on Friday.

“What kind of danger were they to the Israelis? They were carrying nothing. It’s clear on the TV. ?” Amal al-Dirra calmly explained.

She says Mohammed went with his father to shop for a used car in Gaza City Saturday morning because his parents didn’t want him to get swept up with other kids who might be inclined to watch or join in the riots.

Family members say that when father and son were heading home –without a new car -- their taxi was stopped by the roadblock at Netzarim Junction. Just when the two headed hand-in-hand across the rock-strewn intersection to get a taxi on the other side, the shooting started. For 40 minutes they were trapped by the gunfire, said one relative.

For about five minutes after the boy was hit his father yelled “My son is dying, my son is dying,” but nobody could get to them because the shooting continued, according to eye witness Muhammed Abu Najib, who was volunteering to collect blood with the local ambulance service.

When ambulance worker Assam al-Bilbaissie dashed to help the boy, he got shot and killed. And the grieving father Jamal, who most days works in construction in Israel, took four bullets.

Down the road, the 60 Orthodox Jewish families that the army is protecting at Netzarim settlement were oblivious to the drama outside. They were in the settlement’s synagogue welcoming in the Jewish new year.

“It is very important for us to keep this place in the hand of the state of Israel,” Shlomit Ziv, a 30-year-old mother of six at Netzarim, told foreign journalists 10 days earlier. “Abraham lived here. God told him here ‘I will give you Israel – Gaza and Jerusalem.”

The Israeli army has opened an investigation into Muhammed’s death, which spokesmen describe as a “horrible tragedy.” But they insist their soldiers were merely defending themselves as Palestinians attacked them, including with bullets.

“We had a mob rioting and throwing Molotov cocktails and bombs. It was a war zone. You think they could see the boy? There were thousands of people.” said army spokesman Yarden Vatikay. “Of course this was sorrowful event. But if the Palestinians had stopped the mobs this child would still be playing soccer in Bureij.”

Muhammed’s mom says she takes comfort that her child is in paradise because he died a martyr’s death. But she does not believe her son’s death will change anything between Arabs and Israelis.

“We’re used to this. Once in a while people die. But everything goes on as usual,” Amal al-Dirra said.
When she visited her husband in the hospital Sunday morning his first words to her were “Be patient. Be patient".

A few hours earlier, Amal dreamed she saw her little boy Muhammed walk in the door.

“I’ll raise the birds for him,” she said, looking up at the cage.

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