Ali Murat Alhas
17 May 2018•Update: 18 May 2018
By Esat Firat
GAZA CITY, Palestine
Disabled Palestinian Fadi Abu Salah, 30, was among 62 martyrs killed by Israeli troops during Monday’s peaceful rallies near the Gaza-Israel fence, where Palestinians protested Israel’s occupation and the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
Born in the Gaza Strip in 1988, both of Fadi’s legs were amputated in 2008 after he was injured in an Israel attack on Gaza.
Ten years later, he was killed after being struck in the chest by an exploding bullet.
In a March 30 interview with Anadolu Agency, Fadi had said he would continue to participate in the Gaza rallies “until Palestine is free and the [Israeli] blockade has been lifted”.
“He told me to take good care of our children, then left," his wife, Amina, told Anadolu Agency on Thursday, recalling the last time she saw her husband.
Through her tears, she recalled how she had taken part in the demonstrations along with her late husband and five children.
"Israeli soldiers targeted his wheelchair with gas bombs numerous times," she said.
"Fadi wanted to show his loyalty to Palestine and Jerusalem; to let the enemy know that we would sacrifice our lives for the Al-Aqsa Mosque," she added.
"I couldn't believe it when I heard on the phone. I ran straight to the hospital. Then I saw his brother pushing his empty wheelchair and I knew he had been martyred,” the grieving widow recounted.
Addressing her husband’s killers, she asked: “Why did you have to kill him? Why did you have to deprive his children of their father?”
"These savages have no mercy; no conscience," she said of the Israeli army.
Intisar Abu Salah, Fadi's mother, said he had lost both legs in 2008 to an Israeli drone strike.
"We thought he had been martyred back then, but it was Allah's grace that saved him," she said.
"The holy month of Ramadan has arrived and he is not here,” she lamented.
“I don't know how we’ll make it through the month without him.”
*Ali Murat Alhas contributed to this report from Ankara
