Ramallah: Gazans are demanding the death sentence for a teenager who raped an eight-year-old girl from Al Shajaeyah neighbourhood in Gaza City.
The call for capital punishment comes amid a wave of outrage across social media about the girl’s ordeal.
The victim, a third-grader identified only as T.A., was on her way home from school when the 16-year-old boy attacked her in an isolated area as the sobbing child pleaded with him to return the school bag he had snatched from her.
According to Gaza Police, the teenage rapist tried to kill the girl after repeatedly raping her, but her screams eventually alerted passers-by, who came to her aid and took her to hospital. The boy was arrested within 24 hours. The victim has been in the intensive care unit of Gaza Hospital for the past week, suffering from serious bleeding.
The assault on the little girl has sparked fury on the streets of Gaza and shocked the entire community. Gazan activists launched a social media campaign calling for rejection of any attempts by the rapist’s family to save his life.
One activist, Ohoud Shamali, said execution of the rapist would deter other potential offenders, while helping to protect the social structure of Gazan society by easing fears among families about sending their daughters to school.
The Higher Commission of the Gazan Families and Clans is demanding the most severe sentence possible for the assailant, although he is still legally a minor. The commission is also calling for deportation of the rapist’s family from Al Shajaeyah Refugee Camp.
Gazan psychiatrist Dr Fadl Abu Hain said that although a minor, the young rapist could not be pardoned. His crime was not just against the little girl — who would suffer psychologically all her life — but against the entire Gazan society.
Gaza Legal Researches and Consultations Centre has demanded severe punishments for rapists, with no leniency. The centre says the Palestinian relative laws should be reviewed immediately to provide women with the highest level of protection against rapists. According to the centre, at least two vicious rapes have been reported every year in the Gaza Strip since 1999.
The Islamist movement of Hamas took over the tiny coastal strip in 2007 following a brief civil war and ousted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement. Hamas has been running the strip in accordance with recommendations from its Consultative Council.
