Jordanian Who Killed 7 Israeli Schoolgirls Says World Should ‘Eliminate’ Israel
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Jordanian soldier released from prison after serving 20 years for killing seven Israeli schoolgirls called on the world to “eliminate” Israel.
“The Israelis are the human waste of people, that the rest of the world has vomited up at our feet,” Ahmed Daqamseh told Al-Jazeera shortly after his release from a Jordanian prison on Sunday. “We must eliminate them by fire or by burial. If this is not done by our hands, the task will fall on the future generations to do.
Considered a hero by many in Jordan, Daqamseh was greeted in his home village of Ibdir by cheering family members, friends and supporters, including his 78-year-old mother.
Daqamseh opened fire on eighth-graders in 1997, three years after Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty, while they were on a class trip to the scenic Island of Peace post on the border between Israel and Jordan. A Jordanian court later found Daqamseh to be mentally unstable and sentenced him to life in prison rather than the death penalty.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
