Palestinian woman dies during Israeli raid on West Bank

Eyewitnesses say 60-year-old woman died of injuries sustained when she was shoved to ground by soldiers conducting arrest raid in her village. Army says woman had heart problems

Reuters | Published: 09.21.08, 06:57

A Palestinian woman died of injuries sustained on Sunday when she was shoved to the ground by Israeli soldiers conducting an arrest raid in her village in the West Bank, witnesses and a medical official said.

They said Mariam Ayyad, aged around 60, had tried to block the path of troops who came to Abu Dis, near Jerusalem, overnight to detain students lodging in a property she owned.

"She went outside in order to prevent them arresting someone from her house," one of the students, who would only be identified by his nickname, Abu Yaffa, told Reuters. "They knocked her down and there was blood on her head."

An Israeli military spokesperson said that an investigation into the incident revealed that the woman had taken a step backwards, fallen down, hit her head and died. A military doctor attempted to resuscitate her for about half an hour, but to no avail, the army said.

According to the spokesperson, family members told the soldiers that the woman had suffered from heart problems.

Nesrin Jasan, an Abu Dis doctor who examined Ayyad for a medical report, said that "the cause of death was being pushed to the ground and being struck in the head."

The incident looked likely to stoke tensions in the West Bank, where the US-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has mounted a security drive since breaking with Islamist Hamas rivals who routed his forces in the Gaza Strip last year.

Though Abbas has revived peace talks with Israel, officials in his administration have frequently complained that Israeli military actions and support for Jewish settlements in the West Bank undermine their credibility in the eyes of Palestinians.

Israeli troops killed a 14-year-old Palestinian from Asira al-Kabaliya village in the northern West Bank on Saturday, saying he was about to throw a firebomb at them.

Asira al-Kabaliya saw a September 13 rampage by armed Israeli settlers in which three Palestinians were hurt. The settlers said they were responding to a Palestinian attack in which a child from their community was stabbed and a house torched.