Murder of Shalhevet Pass

Murder of Shalhevet Pass
Part of the Second Intifada militancy campaign
The attack site
Location	Avraham Avinu neighborhood in Hebron
Date	March 26, 2001 4:00 pm (GMT+2)
Attack type	Shooting attack
Weapon(s)	Sniper rifle
Death(s)	a ten-month-old Israeli infant (Shalhevet Pass)
Perpetrator(s)	Lone Palestinian assailant (Mahmud Amru), member of the Tanzim militant group[1]

Shalhevet Pass with her mother.

The murder of Shalhevet Pass was a shooting attack which was carried out on March 26, 2001 in Hebron, in which a Palestinian sniper killed the ten-month-old Israeli infant Shalhevet Pass. The event shocked the Israeli public mainly because the Palestinian sniper was intentionally aiming for the baby.

The murder became a "potent Israeli symbol as an innocent victim of the raging violence".^[2][3]

The murder

On March 26, 2001, at 4:00 pm, Shalhevet was seated in her stroller in a playground at the entrance to the Avraham Avinu neighborhood in Hebron, where she and her family lived.^[4][5] A Palestinian sniper opened fire with a high-powered rifle from the Abu Sneinah neighborhood on the hill opposite.^[4][5] Shalhevet was killed instantly.^[6] The baby's mother grabbed her and ran with her, only to find that blood was running down her hands.^[3] One of the sniper's bullets penetrated the baby's head, passing through her skull, and hit her father as well.^[7][8] Shalhevet's young father Yitzchak Pass, a student, who had been pushing the stroller, was also seriously wounded minutes later by two bullets.^{[4][9][10][11][12]}

Press accounts indicated that at the time of the shooting: "The ... playground was swarming with children because new sand had been delivered to the sandbox."^[4] Two other girls playing in the sandbox reportedly had bullets go through their clothing and narrowly escaped injury, while a third reportedly had her finger grazed by a bullet.^[4]

Aftermath

The murder of Shalhevet Pass, which came relatively early in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, produced vocal outrage in Israel and abroad, mainly because the Palestinian sniper was intentionally aiming for the baby.^[2] The nation mourned the killing of the baby.^[3]

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon condemned the attack and sent his condolences to the Pass family. Sharon also stated that he saw the Palestinian Authority responsible for the attack.

The Jewish community in Hebron demanded that the Israeli army reoccupy the Abu Sneineh neighborhood in Hebron, and the Pass family even stated that they would not bury their baby until the IDF would reoccupy the Abu Sneineh neighborhood.^[4]

After the murder of Shalhevet Pass, the Jewish community in Hebron looted and burned shops at the western area of Hebron as well as buildings of the Waqf. During the two months that followed the murder of Shalhevet Pass three shooting attacks were carried out against Palestinians vehicles in which one Palestinian was killed and seven were wounded. An unknown body named "Gilad Shalhevet" took responsibility for the attacks and stated that they were carried out in revenge for the murder of Shalhevet Pass.

In 2003, Yitzhak Pass was captured along with his brother, Matityahu Shabu, while they had explosives in their possession. As a result, Yitzhak was convicted of possession of weapons and was sentenced to two years in prison. The court noted that it was not proven that Yitzhak and Matityahu's true intention was to "ideological motivated and designed to avenge Arabs" but because they did not provide an explanation for their actions the court concluded that they possessed the explosives for an illegal purpose.

The capture and the trial of the killer

The Palestinian Authority initially arrested the sniper but released him after a short while. On December 9, 2002 the Shin Bet managed to capture the sniper – the Tanzim member Mahmud Amru.

In December 2004 a military court convicted the killer and sentenced him to three life terms.^[13][14]

According to the Israeli government, an investigation concluded that the professional snipers had intentionally targeted the baby.^[4][9] A spokesperson for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said:

The fact that they could pick off the baby and then the father makes this a hideous, deliberate, cold-blooded murder. Snipers are not just gun-toting youth... If Arafat had wanted, the sniper would not have been there.^[4]

In the verdict the judges expressed their shock of the brutality of the murder:

"It was enough for one bullet, fired from a sniper rifle, to end the life of the infant Shalhevet Pass, who up to that event was unknown to the wide public, and just lived her life as all other children, until one day as the evening came she was hit in her head, and her she died, and Shalhevet whom was still small and and in her infant stage, was sentenced to death by a vile killer whom intentionally, using a Telescopic sight, pulled the trigger. The picture of the shot baby is on our table, is engraved in our minds and does not give peace to our souls. We can not understand and we can not accept the unbearable ease in which the killer decided to harm a helpless person... We the judges are only humans and we can not see anything else but image which emerges is our senses, an image full of hate, blood and bereavement. We must not accept this image and we need to do everything we can to condemn it."

Reactions

Official reactions

Memorial to Shalhevet Pass, Hebron

Reactions in the media

The Associated Press ran the story with the headline "Jewish toddler dies in West Bank".^[15] HonestReporting ran an article criticizing the downplaying of the murder, and said that when it contacted The Washington Post, the paper switched to an updated headline of "“Jewish Baby Shot Dead on West Bank”".^[16]

The Voice of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority's official radio station, reported that the report of the girl's shooting death was a lie, and that instead the girl's mother had murdered her own baby.^{[17][18][19][20][21]}

In popular culture

A song was dedicated to the memory of "Baby Shalhevet", sung by Avraham Fried at a concert in Hebron, and was written by his brother Rabbi Manis Friedman.^[22]

See also

• Israeli–Palestinian conflict in Hebron

External links

• Palestinians Kill Baby Girl In West Bank - published on The New York Times on March 27, 2001‎
• Mourners rage at Shalhevet's funeral - published on The Jerusalem Post on April 2, 2001‎
• IDF vows to catch Hebron baby-killer - published on The Jerusalem Post on March 28, 2001‎
• Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs profile
• Israeli Department of Education profile - published on education.gov.il
• Critique of original AP report on the incident - published on aish.com

References

1. ^ Yonah Alexander (2003). Palestinian secular terrorism: profiles of Fatah, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. http://books.google.com/books?id=9M8vAQAAIAAJ&q=Shalhevet+Pass&dq=Shalhevet+Pass&hl=en&ei=i0OBTbTdApSksQO0ubD_AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAzge. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Sontag, Deborah (April 2, 2001). "Israeli Baby's Funeral Becomes Focus of Settler Militancy". New York Times. 
3. ^ ^{a b c} Giulio Meotti (2010). A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism. http://books.google.com/books?id=gqMVfx6dCJkC&pg=PA125&dq=shalhevet+pass+became&hl=en&ei=NDKETaCyMZPWtQOkuJDICg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=shalhevet%20pass%20became&f=false. Retrieved March 19, 2011. 
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Peter Bouckaert (2001). Center of the storm: a case study of human rights abuses in Hebron District. Human Rights Watch. pp. 64–65. ISBN 1564322602. http://books.google.com/books?id=6aLsz14aKJsC&pg=PA64&dq=Shalhevet+Pass&hl=en&ei=szqBTaOZBpKqsAOj0fHpAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Shalhevet%20Pass&f=false. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
5. ^ ^{a b} Morey Schwartz (March 26, 2001). Where's My Miracle?. http://books.google.com/books?id=69IFhGwrwAAC&pg=PR13&dq=Shalhevet+Pass&hl=en&ei=JUCBTejXGJK8sAPv3tmDAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=Shalhevet%20Pass&f=false. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
6. ^ Nechemia Coopersmith, Shraga Simmons. Israel: Life In The Shadow Of Terror. http://books.google.com/books?id=U9boAAAAIAAJ&q=Shalhevet+Pass&dq=Shalhevet+Pass&hl=en&ei=GEWBTcaYCYfksQO43YHmAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwADgo. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
7. ^ Charles W. Greenbaum, Philip E. Veerman, Naomi Bacon-Shnoor (2006). Protection of children during armed political conflict: a multidisciplinary perspective. http://books.google.com/books?id=9FTxoncXDwwC&pg=PA443&dq=Shalhevet+Pass&hl=en&ei=JUCBTejXGJK8sAPv3tmDAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=Shalhevet%20Pass&f=false. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
8. ^ Daniel Gordis (2003). Home to Stay: One American Family's Chronicle of Miracles and Struggles in Contemporary Israel. Random House. http://books.google.com/books?id=y7glZcS7mMgC&pg=PA190&dq=Shalhevet+Pass&hl=en&ei=JUCBTejXGJK8sAPv3tmDAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEUQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=Shalhevet%20Pass&f=false. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
9. ^ ^{a b} "Target: Israeli Children". Israeli Ministry of Education. http://www.education.gov.il/children/page_23.htm. "On Monday, March 26, 2001 a Palestinian sniper aimed his rifle and opened fire at 10-month old Shalhevet Pass in Hebron, while she was lying in her stroller. Shalhevet was killed by a bullet to the head." 
10. ^ Judy Lash Balint (2001). Jerusalem diaries: in tense times. http://books.google.com/books?id=Dxno8wNLIXEC&pg=PA171&dq=Shalhevet+Pass&hl=en&ei=szqBTaOZBpKqsAOj0fHpAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Shalhevet%20Pass&f=false. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
11. ^ Mark Matthews (2007). Lost years: Bush, Sharon, and failure in the Middle East. http://books.google.com/books?id=0LdyAAAAMAAJ&q=Shalhevet+Pass&dq=Shalhevet+Pass&hl=en&ei=i0OBTbTdApSksQO0ubD_AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwADge. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
12. ^ Nachman Seltzer (2006). The Link. http://books.google.com/books?id=N8b9FGJ-WfkC&pg=PA9&dq=Shalhevet+Pass&hl=en&ei=zEWBTbPQMpPmsQOki93_AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CEYQ6AEwCDgy#v=onepage&q=Shalhevet%20Pass&f=false. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
13. ^ BBC Monitoring Newsfile, Dec 16, 2004, quoting Ma'ariv web site, Tel Aviv, in English 16 Dec 04
14. ^ Margot Dudkevitch (16 Dec 2004). "Baby's murderer gets three life sentences". Jerusalem Post. p. 2. 
15. ^ "Jewish Toddler Dies in West Bank". Associated Press. March 26, 2001. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-42968508.html. Retrieved March 19, 2011. 
16. ^ "Toddler 'dies'". Honest Reporting. March 27, 2001. http://honestreporting.com/toddler-dies/. Retrieved March 19, 2011. 
17. ^ Fiamma Nirenstein (2005). Terror: the new anti-semitism and the war against the West. Smith and Kraus. http://books.google.com/books?id=D_UvAQAAIAAJ&q=Shalhevet+Pass&dq=Shalhevet+Pass&hl=en&ei=i0OBTbTdApSksQO0ubD_AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CEwQ6AEwCDge. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
18. ^ AMIT magazine. 2001. http://books.google.com/books?id=8O4sAQAAIAAJ&q=Shalhevet+Pass&dq=Shalhevet+Pass&hl=en&ei=GEWBTcaYCYfksQO43YHmAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAjgo. Retrieved March 16, 2011. 
19. ^ "Palestinian radio reports Israeli mother killed baby". Jweekly. April 6, 2001. http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/15406/palestinian-radio-reports-israeli-mother-killed-baby/. Retrieved March 19, 2011. 
20. ^ Michael Chabin (June 15, 2001). "Media spawns anti-Semitic propaganda". Jewish News of Greater Phoenix. http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/010615/media.shtml. Retrieved March 19, 2011. 
21. ^ "News at a Glance". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. April 4, 2001. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-79386942.html. Retrieved March 19, 2011. 
22. ^ .. http://www.col.org.il/pics/inbox/.146023_0631634.wma. Retrieved March 16, 2011.