Word: muna
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...confession, Muna described how she met Rahum in Jerusalem on that day in January 2001, took a taxi with him to the northern suburbs and from there drove him in her car to the Palestinian city of Ramallah. The two cities almost touch. Rahum probably didn't know he had left Jerusalem. Muna told police she intended to hold Rahum as a hostage to prod the Israelis to release Palestinian prisoners. But in Ramallah, one of her co-conspirators, Hassan al-Qadi (a "senior armed terror operative," according to Israeli intelligence), allegedly shot the boy dead at point-blank range...
...about his relationship with the woman, but neither of us knew that she was from Ramallah," said the boy's friend Abergil. "She misled him. He told us that she was from Jerusalem." Israeli police discovered the body of a boy on the outskirts of Ramallah. Israeli intelligence traced Muna's screen name to an Internet café in Ramallah and tracked her down to her parents' home in Bir Naballah, a village north of Jerusalem, where she was seized days after the murder...
...trial, her lawyer Jawad Boulos said Muna never intended to kill the boy. "What happened, happened out of her control, without her knowledge and certainly without her consent," he said. But in courthouse interviews, she reportedly told journalists, "I am proud of myself. I am proud of myself." In November 2001, Muna was given a life sentence by an Israeli military court. The gunman, al-Qadi, had been killed in an explosion in Ramallah in April 2001. It was never established whether he had been targeted by the Israelis or was the victim of a bomb he may have been...
Behind bars, Muna became a radical leader of female prisoners and a Palestinian heroine. To the Israelis, however, she was a troublemaker. In 2004 Muna sparked two riots in Sharon Prison near Netanya. Warders said she terrorized the women's cell block with threats of violence, punishing anyone who challenged her. In 2006 she was transferred for beating up a fellow prisoner. Declaring she was too disruptive to mix with other inmates, officials put Muna in solitary confinement. In 2007, however, she went on hunger strike to protest her isolation; she was kept in her cell...
Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, says Muna's notoriety helped get her on the Hamas list but also makes Israel unwilling to release her. "She committed a heinous crime, but if she is released, she'll be greeted when she returns as a symbol and a heroine. For that reason, Israel strongly resists allowing her out, or if she is released, they want to expel her from the area. Israel has resisted this exchange for more than three years. The majority of Israelis find the deal distasteful but accept it as the price necessary...