Israel orders PA to pay $1.8m to families of Jerusalem bombing victims

The Israeli Supreme Court yesterday demanded the Palestinian Authority pay six million shekels (about $1.8 million) to the daughters of Gad and Tzipi Shemesh, who were killed in a bomb attack in Jerusalem 20 years ago.

Broadcaster Kan quoted judicial sources as saying that Tzipi was “pregnant with twins when she was murdered.”

The bombing was reported to have resulted in the killing of three people, Gad and Tzipi, and the former Knesset member Yitzhak Cohen. It also left 80 others wounded.

The judgement comes four years after the Jerusalem District Court ruled that the Palestinian Authority was responsible for a 2002 suicide bombing in the occupied city, claiming those who ordered the bombing were officers in the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatus.

The bombing took place during the Second Intifada against the occupation which was ignited in September 2000 by Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon storming Al-Aqsa Mosque with heavily armed Israeli policemen and soldiers provoking a Palestinian uprising that lasted five years and left over 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis dead.

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