'How Ironic that Israel is Rescuing us from our Muslim Brothers'

Fatan al-Hinawi, 9, was hospitalized in the children's ward of Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv after being wounded in Gaza. A bullet punctured her side, hit her spine, bowels, a kidney and came out the other side, hitting her arm.

Al-Hinawi is one of five Palestinians, three of them children, who were caught in Hamas-Fatah cross fire and taken to Ichilov. Some are in serious condition.

Shadi, a 23-year-old policemen, is one of them. He was attacked by Hamas gunmen a week ago. "There were five of them. They stood over me and shot my legs from the knee down. One of them put his Kalashnikov to my head. Instinctively I moved the barrel aside and the bullet hit my hand," Shadi told Haaretz yesterday. He arrived at Ichilov with one leg amputated and the other leg crushed.

Later yesterday, Zecharia Alrai, 39, an officer in Fatah's elite Force 17 commando unit, arrived. He had been abducted by four Hamas gunmen a week ago. They loaded him into a jeep and drove him to an isolated spot, where they shot three bullets into his leg and dumped him.

"That's not Islam. That's evil and hypocrisy. How ironic that Israel is rescuing us from our Muslim 'brothers,'" he said.