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Americans on both sides fall prey to violence |
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November 2, 2000
JERUSALEM (AP) - Reuven and Zehava Gilmore immigrated to Israel from the United States because they felt their real home was the Jewish state. On Tuesday they buried their son - shot and killed, apparently by a Palestinian gunman - and searched for answers. In the West Bank town of El-Bireh, Palestinian-American Rabea Barghouti cowered on the floor with her screaming children as an Israeli helicopter gunship attacked the offices of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction across the street, in retaliation for the shooting of Esh Kodesh Gilmore and the slaying of another Israeli. As Israeli-Palestinian violence spirals on, American citizens on both sides have been caught in the crossfire. A U.S. travel advisory calling on American citizens to avoid travel in the region also suggests that Americans who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip should consider moving to "safe locations." Barghouti felt anything but safe as the helicopter hovered noisily overhead. "It's the most terrifying moment in your life to see someone aim rockets at you and you can't do anything about it," she said. Esh Kodesh Gilmore, 25, told his wife, Inbal, he would be safe, though he worked in the predominantly Arab section of Jerusalem. "He said nothing would ever happen to him," Inbal Gilmore said. "He was always right, except for this." Reuven Gilmore, 49, immigrated from Cleveland, Ohio, where he was known as Ron. His wife, Zehava, 48, originally Sheila Alexander, grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Their son, Esh Kodesh Gilmore, was a security guard at a branch of the National Insurance Institute in an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem. The office disburses social security and unemployment payments to area residents. Kodesh was killed and a fellow guard critically wounded when an assailant opened fire on them from close range at the entrance to the office. The Gilmores said they never had much faith in peace negotiations, and the recent violence hardened their belief that the Palestinians seek confrontation, not reconciliation. Talia, Esh Kodesh Gilmore's infant daughter, calls out for her father and kisses his photograph, her mother said. Barghouti, meanwhile, told how her home was battered by the helicopter guns Monday night. Shattered glass covered the floor. She said the cries of her 7-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter mixed with her own. "We are American citizens, that's what we pay taxes for, to send money to pay for Israeli weapons?" Barghouti said. Immediately after the attack, she said, she called her husband and two older sons in Birmingham, Alabama, saying she wanted them to find out from her, not from news reports. Despite the violence that has entrapped them, the Barghoutis and the Gilmores both say the United States is no longer home. "I won't return to America because this is our land also and my children's," said Barghouti. The Gilmores live about 15 miles (24 kilometers) away, in Mevo Modiin, a small Israeli town near the old cease-fire line with the West Bank, home to a collection of followers of the late Jewish spiritualist Shlomo Carlebach. "We have the historical and moral right because we don't have any other country," said Reuven Gilmore. Esh Kodesh Gilmore was the oldest of six children. Reuven Gilmore believed they would not come of age in a region of bloodshed. "I thought the Messiah would come before that," he said.
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