December 11, 2002
Below is an example of a death notice, frequently found in the
Palestinian press. This particular one is from the Palestinian daily,
Al-Hayyat Al-Jadida, a newspaper officially sanctioned by the
Palestinian Authority.
It praises the attempt of a 17-year old youth from Gaza to kill
as many Israeli soldiers as possible. He succeeded in killing an officer
and three soldiers.
What is clear is that the Palestinian press is sanctioning these
attacks by allowing notices, such as this one, to be published.
“In the name of God, the righteous and compassionate – the death of
those who were killed in the path of God is not counted as death,
rather they are blessed with revitalization at the side of God.
With great glory and pride the father of the Martyr Muhamad
Mahmud Muhamad Shaldan and his family and the whole Shaldan
clan inside and outside the Homeland announces his death to our
Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic peoples, a son of Islam
and of Palestine, may God honor him.
The leader and martyr Mahmud Muhamad Mahmud Shaldan Abu
Muhamad, ‘Knight of the Night the Quran was Revealed’
who anticipates a reward for his pious deed and thrives in the path
of God by sacrificing himself before the age of 18 following an
armed confrontation and his incursion into a military outpost on the
eastern road of Gaza which led to the death of a senior Israeli officer
and three soldiers at dawn of the 28th night of Ramadan, Leilat
Al-Qadr [the night that the Quran was revealed], 1423 [the Muslim
calendar counts years from when Muhamad left Mecca, which
corresponds to December 2, 2002.]
His pure corpse was escorted from his home in the Hai Al-Zaitun
accompanied by significant crowds which reflected the debt of honor
to him of the Palestinian people.
God has sheathed the Martyr with His Plentiful Grace and has settled
him in heaven with prophets and saints and the pure martyrs and the
first comrades [Muhamad’s first followers].
Comment: His father is receiving mourners, if God wills it, in a
martyrdom ceremony for those who did not attend in the first place,
in his house in Hai Al-Zeitun after the evening prayer near the
Shama’a Mosque.
