Intifada’s icon bequeaths name of hope

HE HAS become an icon. His his name is in songs and street names, his image on posters and stamps. Mohammed al-Dura’s death, as his father tried to protect him amid a gunbattle, made him a symbol of Palestinian suffering.

Now the dead boy’s family will have a new Mohammed when his mother gives birth this year. The name could be a heavy burden because, at the age of 12, the first Mohammed became a national hero.

Jamal al-Dura was returning home with his eldest son after looking at second-hand cars when a battle broke out between Israeli and Palestinian forces at Netzarim Cross in Gaza on 30 September, 2000. Television cameras captured the father’s desperation as he tried to shield his son and called for the shooting to stop. When the shooting ended an hoyr later, Mr Dura had been hit by eight bullets and lived while his son had been hit by one and died.

The boy’s face is ever present at the Dura home in the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza. Metre-high stencils cover the exterior and, inside, his portrait graces every wall. His face hangs beside Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and the Dome of the Rock, the holy site in Jerusalem.

Amal al-Dura, Mohammed’s mother, tells of her joy at the prospect of a new son. "I felt so happy when I discovered that I was pregnant and even happier when the doctors told me I was to give birth to a boy.

"Many people have told me to give him a different name, but it is traditional to name a child after one that died. I want to keep the name. It will give us a feeling that he is still here. After all God took Mohammed away from me and he has given me another."

The Duras, like all Palestinian families who lose relatives to the Israelis, received $10,000 from Iraq, $5,000 from Saudi Arabia and $2,000 from the Palestinian Authority - a fortune for refugees - and Mr Dura is undergoing a lengthy recuperation in Iran, where it will take years to rebuild his shattered body.

Yet it has never been firmly established which side shot the father and son. An Israeli military spokesman apologised for the death, but other army officers accused Palestinians of shooting the pair. Investigations were hampered by the Israelis’ demolition of the area and the tradition of swift burial.

Immediately after the death of her son, Mrs Dura said she did not care about its significance, all she cared about was the loss of one of her children. But now she realises "that his death was far from nothing. It fuelled the intifada and everybody remembers his death as an example of Israeli cruelty".

Amal believes that, just as Mohammed’s death came to symbolise Palestinian suffering and Israeli brutality, the birth will also have a potent message. "If you kill one of us, God will compensate us with more children. For each one they kill, another one will replace them. We believe that God is in control of our destiny not the Israelis."

Nevertheless, while some Palestinian mothers see glory in their children dying for the struggle, Mrs Dura has different aspirations for her unborn son. "I hope that when Mohammed is born, there will be no struggle, no bombing, no killing. I hope there will be peace and he will have a better life than his brother."