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August 11, 2003
Teenager killed in Hizbullah attack on Shlomo
By David Rudge
Haviv Dadon, 16, the first Israeli civilian to be killed as a direct result of Hizbullah shelling since the IDF's withdrawal from South Lebanon in May 2000, was laid to rest in the cemetery of his hometown, Shlomi, on Sunday night.
Hundreds of people attended the funeral of the teenager, who was killed in the early afternoon by a so-called anti-aircraft shell that exploded two meters from where he was eating a bread roll after finishing part-time cleaning and maintenance work for the local council.
Dadon, who is survived by his parents and five siblings, was sitting with a group of friends on steps opposite the commercial center of the Western Galilee township when the Hizbullah salvo struck.
He was hit in the chest and limbs by shrapnel. Resuscitation efforts by Magen David Adom paramedics, who reached the scene in minutes, were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Another teenager was wounded and three other people were lightly hurt. Several more, including Dadon's parents, had to be treated for shock.
"He was a flower of a boy, a real flower. Why did they kill him? Why did they take him away from me," cried his mother, Miriam, clutching a photograph of her son.
"You can't say you are used to this firing, because you don't know when or where it will fall. Everybody is frightened," Haviv's brother Meir Dadon told reporters.
"There was somebody wounded three weeks ago and nobody come. Let's see what will be done now that Haviv has been killed," he said.
Shlomi council head Gabriel Na'aman told The Jerusalem Post that the council had a program for teenagers who wanted to earn some pocket money during the summer vacation.
He said that Dadon and several others took part in the program, which primarily involved helping with cleaning and maintenance work.
"Haviv was born and raised here. His family is one of the veteran families in Shlomi. They came here in 1956. The father recently had major surgery. They have had welfare problems and now they are having to bury a son," said Na'aman.
"Shlomi is only a small place with some 6,000 residents and where virtually everyone knows one another. This is a terrible blow for all of us. "It is made worse by the fact that we have been constantly warning that something like this could happen unless something was done about the Hizbullah firing," he said.
"There have been some 35 incidents of so-called anti-aircraft firing over Shlomi around 180 shells have been fired in total but the prime minister and defense minister have simply ignored my calls and those of the forum of confrontation line communities," said Na'aman.
Dadon is the first civilian to be killed directly by Hizbullah shelling, but not the first fatality since the IDF's withdrawal in May 2000. In fact, 10 Israelis had been killed previously in various operations emanating from Lebanon, in addition to the three soldiers, St.-Sgts. Benny Avraham, Omar Suwayeed, and Adi Avitan, who were kidnapped in a Hizbullah ambush in the Mount Dov region in October 2000.
An IDF officer and five civilians were killed in an ambush near Kibbutz Matzuva, on the Kabri to Shlomi road, in March last year by two terrorists who infiltrated from Lebanon. Four other soldiers were killed in attacks by Hizbullah in the Mount Dov region in intervening years and dozens of soldiers and civilians have been wounded by Hizbullah cross-border firing.
In Memoriam
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