The murder of the Hatuel family was a shooting attack on May 2, 2004, in which Palestinian militants killed Tali Hatuel, a Jewish settler, who was eight months pregnant, and her four daughters, aged two to eleven. On June 6, 2007, the IDF arrested Jihad Salah Saliman Abu Dahar, a Palestinian member of Islamic Jihad from the Khan Yunis area, who according to Shin Bet officials admitted to several acts of violence, including the attack on Hatuel and her daughters. Likud party members were voting that day in a legally non-binding, advisory referendum being conducted across Israel and in Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories on Ariel Sharon's disengagement proposal. The attackers, who were armed with automatic rifles, then approached the vehicle and fired their weapons from close range at Hatuel and her daughters repeatedly. A CNN film crew working near Gush Katif who had come under fire by the militants earlier had attempted to warn and stop Israeli civilian vehicles leaving Gush Katif, among them Hatuel and her four daughters who drove past the armored CNN car. Two soldiers from the Givati Brigade who were in a vehicle behind the Hatuel car were also injured during the battle. The Popular Resistance Committees and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that it was carried out in reprisals for the assassinations of Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Abdelaziz Rantisi by the Israeli army earlier the same year and reportedly described it as "heroic". The deaths brought the total number of people killed in the Second Intifada to 3,958 at that time, 905 Israelis and 2,983 Palestinians.

Following the attack, Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at a tower-block in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City that housed a radio station with links to Hamas which the IDF alleged had been broadcasting "incitement". Hours later, an Israeli air strike on a car in the West Bank city of Nablus killed four people described as members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades by Palestinian sources. Mourners had to take cover behind vehicles during the 20 to 30 minute exchange of fire. The body of one gunman killed by the Israel Defense Forces was recovered after a search of the area but the IDF said that they believed a second gunman was also killed. By May 10, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, 1,100 Palestinians had been made homeless by Israeli military raids in Gaza in what they described as "one of the most intense periods of destruction for years" and "illegal collective punishment" for the killing of Tali Hatuel and children. According to a neighbor, residents had already left the area on the assumption that Hammad's house would be demolished. According to Human Rights Watch, Hammad's house was not harmed but a house across the street belonging to Mahmoud Abu Arab was bulldozed instead. described by Islamic Jihad as one of its "most senior commanders in Palestine." Khalil, who had survived several previous assassination attempts, died when an Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile at his car in the Gaza Strip. His deputy was also killed and four others were injured.

On June 6, 2007, the IDF arrested Jihad Salah Saliman Abu Dahar, a member of Islamic Jihad from the Khan Yunis area, who according to Shin Bet officials admitted to involvement in violence, including the Hatuel murder. Abu Dahar reportedly admitted to carrying out surveillance of the attack site and IDF patrols in the weeks prior to the murders and on May 2, 2004, he notified his commanders when IDF patrols were absent.

Reactions

Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel at the time, condemned the attack as a "brutal crime against civilians and children." In Damascus, Ramadan Shallah, the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad said killing of Israeli women and children was permissible "because they decided spontaneously to go live in a war zone". The attack was strongly condemned by Amnesty International as a deliberate attack against civilians and therefore a crime against humanity as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

On June 16, 2004, Ben-Gurion University in the Negev awarded Tali Hatuel a posthumous Masters of Arts degree in Social Work, and granted her husband a Masters of Arts in Jewish Philosophy.

On July 25, 2004, Hatuel's husband David was given a place of prominence near the Western Wall in the human chain from the Gaza Strip to Jerusalem protesting against Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in which over 130,000 Israelis took part.

On August 22, 2005, the day Katif was evacuated, David Hatuel addressed the settlers, defining the day as one of destruction and expulsion, thanking his fellow residents for their support after the murder of his wife and children, adding: "We are going through a crisis, an unfathomable hardship; but we will not despair and we will not fall." In December of the same year, he married Limor Shem-Tov, an occupational therapist, stating: "I have two options, either to collapse or to continue living. I have chosen life! My new home is an addition and not a replacement of the home that was destroyed. I am like a tree whose branches were cut off and now they are growing again." He and Shem-Tov had three sons and a daughter.

References

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/04/israel

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/19/israel.guardianletters

http://www.life.com/news-pictures/50794599/palestinian-gunmen-kill-israeli-settler-and-her-four-children http://articles.latimes.com/2005/aug/22/world/fg-gaza22

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