Palestinians invoke intifada at funeral for 13-year-old terror suspect 'executed' by Israeli forces

During the funeral, the crowd chanted the famous slogan of the second intifada – 'Millions of martyrs are marching to Jerusalem" and waved the Hamas flag.

By MAAYAN GROISMAN
Updated: JANUARY 24, 2016 17:16
Palestinians hold funeral for girl ‘executed’ by Israeli forces after stabbing attack
Despite stormy weather, hundreds of citizens in the town of Yatta, Hebron, attended on Sunday the funeral of Ruqayya abu-Eid, the 13-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli security forces after attempting to stab Israeli soldiers in the settlement of Anatot on Saturday.
Police said that their initial investigation determined that just before the incident the girl was involved in a fight with her family at their home in the nearby Palestinian village of Anata. She then left the house "with the intention to die," district police said in the statement.
During the funeral, the crowd chanted the famous slogan of the second intifada – "Millions of martyrs are marching to Jerusalem" and waved the Hamas flag. Palestinian policemen carried the girl's body, which was covered in a Hamas flag.
In an interview to a Lebanese news channel, the girl's father said that his daughter's death is a sacrifice for al-Aksa and for Palestine and thanked Allah for her sacrifice.
The video of the attempted stabbing attack, released by Israeli security forces, aroused furious responses from Palestinians on Arab social media. Since the video's quality is low and the girl appears to be proudly heading toward the soldiers with a knife in her hand, many Palestinians claim that the knife was planted in the video in order to justify the girl's "execution."
According to these people, it is impossible that the girl pulled out the knife and tried to attack the soldiers while she was a few meters away from them. Someone even claimed that: "pulling out the knife from such a distance is suicide."
Israeli MK Issawi Frej (Meretz) has also criticized Israeli security forces, claiming that shooting the girl, even if she indeed carried a knife, is an extrajudicial killing.
Khaled Abu Toameh and Ben Hartman contributed to this report.