Feature: West Bank village in grief after toddler dead in arson attack

Amidst wail and shock, residents of the village of Duma in West Bank show great sadness when they talked about the 18-month-old Palestinian toddler who was burned to death in a Jewish arson attack on the house in the village.

The toddler's father Sa'ed Dawabsha, his wife and their four-year-old son are still in critical condition in Israeli hospitals. They were unable to join the funeral of Ali Dawabsha who was burned to death on Friday in the arson attack.

The 30-year-old father works in construction while his wife Riham, 27, is a teacher at one of the nearby school in the village with 3,000 population in southeast of Nablus.

Over the past few years, the Israeli authorities have confiscated large areas of the village lands for expansion of Israeli settlements, mainly the settlement of Ma'ale Efrayim.

Residents of Duma, who witnessed the arson attack, told Xinhua that Dawabsha's home in the village was attacked very early on Friday morning by Jewish settlers living in the nearby settlements.

The inside walls of the house turned completely into black after the attack, while the furniture and the family members' garments, including the clothes of the toddler and his milk bottle, also turned into black or melted into pieces.

The residents had managed to rescue the parents and the four-year-old son, but failed to reach the toddler who was sleeping in his bed, saying the flames of fire and smokes were intensive.

Palestinian firefighters arrived at the scene 40 minutes after the attack.

Abdul Salam Allan, mayor of Duma village, said the village is about 30 km away from the city of Nablus while the nearest ambulance center is about 20 km away from the village, and the road from the ambulance center to the village is usually full of Israeli army roadblocks.

"Our initial investigations showed that the Jewish settlers, coming from the nearby settlements, entered the village through an agricultural road and attacked two houses," said Allan.

The village of Duma is surrounded by five Israeli settlements and an Israeli army base. Israeli soldiers erect several checkpoints and check every car and every resident for coming or leaving.

The attack on Friday scared the residents of the village, said the mayor.

Izidin Dawabsha, a relative of the family, stood in front of the attacked house with two other neighbors trying to remember what exactly happened early Friday morning.

"It is really an awful crime that no one can believe it," he said, adding that "three Israeli settlers attacked Sa'ed house at around 2:00 a.m. on Friday and threw flaming materials toward the house and attacked another house before they ran away," said Dawabsha.

He said, because of the heat flames, "the family members woke up screaming, but it was too late; the toddler was killed and everyone was critically injured."

Dawabsha said that "the whole residents of the village are still in a shock and everyone is sad," adding that "what happened was unbelievable and now we are so scared that our children and the residents will face the same fate and settlers will keep attacking us."

Yousef Dereya, a paramedic from the village of Oqroba, close to Duma, said "we received a phone call that there is fire in one of the houses in Duma, but we didn't know what exactly it is, then we rushed to the house and found the baby burned to death, and his parents and his brother were severely injured."

"We were all shocked of this awful crime... the paramedics, the nurses and the doctors were completely shocked after they saw the toddler's burned body," said Dereya.

Hussein Dawabsha, the toddler's grandfather told Xinhua while crying, "what happened to them was a crime against humanity committed in darkness."

He went on with pain that his daughter, her husband and their son "are all in critical condition in the hospital and we are here sitting in the mourning tent."

"The Israeli government is fully responsible for what happened to my daughter's family because it protects the criminal settlers and encourages them," Dawabsha said.

Ghassan Daghlass, the Palestinian (National) Authority (PNA) official in charge of settlement's file in northern West Bank, told Xinhua that the Israeli army and the Israeli settlers are strengthening cooperation in the West Bank, adding that "Duma village is in fact under the full Israeli army security control."

"The village is not at all under the PNA control, where there are Israeli army lookout posts everywhere besides the roadblocks surrounding the settlements in the area," said Daghlass. Endit