Eritrea
Eritrea’s dismal human rights situation, exacerbated by indefinite military conscription, has led thousands of Eritreans to flee their country every month. Eritrea has had no functioning legislature, independent press, or any semblance of civil society organizations since 2001.
“[I]f there is anyone who thinks there will be democracy or [a] multiparty system in this country ... then that person can think of such things in another world.”
~President Isaias Afwerki
Apparently Haftom Zarhum thought there was another world.
The Palestinian attacker was killed, while a security guard shot the Eritrean bystander, identified by Israeli media as 29-year-old Haftom Zarhum, thinking he was an accomplice of the assailant.
At least one Israeli soldier was filmed kicking Zarhum in the head as he lay bleeding on the floor of the terminal. Another man lifted a bench and dropped it on Zarhum's head as others tried to protect him by placing a bar stool over his body.
Sunday's attack brings the total number of people killed in the violence that erupted at the beginning of the month to 52: 44 Palestinians and eight Israelis.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, rejected an idea from France that would see international observers sent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
I use this horrible and truly sad event to make a simple point.
The Palestinians must have an autonomous homeland.
The Israeli's must have security.
The only way forward is a two state solution and not an apartheid style single state which in effect it is at the moment.
The only viable way now to do this is to create a buffer zone between the two warring factions and have UN Peacekeeping forces in place.
Both people's deserve far better than what they have after so many years of war.
If this situation could be eventually resolved, then there is real hope for the future, then again both sides need to show at least willingness for peace.
Just a thought and a prayer
Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev, a member of Netanyahu's hardline Likud party, has in the past called African asylum seekers a "cancer in Israel's body".