Tirza Porat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tirza Porat (1973?–April 6, 1988) was a 15-year-old Israeli girl from Elon Moreh, a religious Israeli settlement on the West Bank, killed during a confrontation April 6, 1988 during the First Intifada. She was the first Israeli civilian to die in the West Bank during the intifada. Despite early reports that she had been stoned to death by Arabs, an Israeli investigation concluded that she had been shot by a Jewish settler.
The incident occurred near the Palestinan village of Beita. A group of 20 Elon Moreh settlers had gone hiking through the fields "to show who are the masters", as one hiker later told a TV interviewer. A mêlée occurred. Versions of the story vary greatly, but there were several Palestinian dead.
Porat died during the mêlée. The settlers reported that she had been stoned to death by the Arabs, but within a day an autopsy by the Israeli Defense Forces indicated that in fact Romam Aldubi, a follower of Meir Kahane with a criminal past, who was supposed to be guarding the hikers, had shot her in the head, presumably by accident as he was firing on the Arabs. Despite this determination of responsibility, a number of houses in Beita were blown up by the Israelis in retaliation. Reports on the number vary; An article by Noam Chomsky in Z Magazine [1] gives a count of 14, among the more conservative.
[edit] External links
- Chomsky, Noam, "Scenes from the Uprising". Z Magazine, July 1988
