[Jerusalem Post] Khaled Abu Toameh - Miriam Farhat, the Palestinian mother whose praise for her three dead sons earned her the title "Mother of Martyrs," was reported Thursday to be in critical condition after suffering a massive heart attack. Farhat's son Muhammad killed five teenagers and wounded 23 people at Atzmona in a 2002 attack. After the death of her first son, Farhat admitted in interviews with Arab media that she encouraged her other sons to follow in his footsteps and become martyrs: "I encouraged all my sons to die a martyr's death." She said she wished she had 100 sons to sacrifice that way. Farhat, 59, was elected as a Hamas parliamentary representative in 2006. Hamas seized the opportunity of her illness to exert pressure on the Egyptians to reopen the Rafah border crossing so that she could be transferred to an Egyptian hospital. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused PA leader Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of "participating in the siege on Gaza." "The Mother of Martyrs is dying and the Arab world does not seem to care," said a Hamas representative.
2008-07-25 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive