Wafer Shaker al Daghma, a 34-year-old elementary school teacher at a local UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), was killed last Wednesday in front of her three children by an explosive device placed on her door by the Israeli military. According to her children, Mrs. Al Daghma put on a headscarf, told her kids to go into a bedroom, and said she was going to open the door for the Israeli troops. As she prepared to open her Gaza home for the soldiers, most of Mrs. Al Daghma’s head was blown off her body.

The Israeli military then confined her traumatized children, ages 2-13, to a room adjacent to their mother’s body for 5 hours. Mr. al Daghma was not home during the time of the murder. Samira, the oldest child, said; “There were still tanks outside our house and if I had gone out they would have seen me. I tried to call my father on my mother’s Jawwal [cellphone] but there was no line. I lifted the carpet and saw a bit of my mother’s clothes. She was not moving. I did not see her head.”

The UN is now demanding an investigation. Chris Gunness, spokesman for UNRWA, said that the Israelis were using al Daghma’s house to monitor “alleged militants”. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised earlier this week to take “strong action” against more residents of occupied Gaza for the rarely-lethal Qassam rockets finding their way over the border.

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