Jobless Gazan youth sets himself on fire

An unemployed young Gazan man has died after dousing himself with gasoline and setting himself on fire, the Associated Press reported on Monday. Sufian Abu Nada told a Palestinian radio station on Monday that his 21-year-old son Ihab set himself alight after he urged the young man to find work. Sobbing, the fathersaid the family was struggling to get by on $220 a month. Gaza ministry of health spokesman Ashraf Al Qidra said the youth, from Gaza City’s Al Shati refugee camp, had sustained serious burns. Locals said Nada had a heated argument with his father before the incident. His father Sufian denied the reports, saying that the teenager set himself ablaze out of desperation that he couldn’t find work. “We had no idea he was going to set himself ablaze. He called our female neighbour on her cell phone to say goodbye to his mother,” he said. “A few days before he burnt himself, he was selling bags of chips in the street, and municipal police were always pursuing him,” his father told Ma’an, calling his son a “fallen martyr of unemployment.” Eyhab used to work 13 hours a day washing dishes in exchange for 30 shekels ($7), his father added, saying that the family of eight live in dire conditions and any money he earns goes towards repaying bank loans. The teenager left school during his Tawjihi exams to help his father provide for the family. There have been dozens of similar deaths throughout the Middle East since a Tunisian man set himself on fire in December 2010, helping trigger the mass protests that have swept across the Arab world. But Sunday night’s incident was the first time in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Separately, Israeli warplanes fired on a training site of Hamas’ military wing in the central Gaza Strip overnight Sunday, without reports of casualties, said a report. Fighter jets fired two missiles at the Al Qassam Brigades grounds south of Gaza City, witnesses said. An Israeli army spokesman said four rockets hit southern Israel on Sunday, without causing damage or injuries. (gulf today)