Chicago Tribune · 15 October 2000
CP-2000-063
Death of an Arab painter colors fabric of enmity in Mideast
Israelis call it a car accident. Palestinians say he was tortured. Either way, it spurred the mob that lynched 2 Israeli reservists.
By Hugh Dellios / TRIBUNE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
Transcribed from the clipping
UM SAFA, West Bank—Discovered next to his overturned car, Issam Juddah died a ghastly death last week. At least that much is agreed upon. Yet a bitter quarrel over just how the Palestinian painter died speaks volumes about the presumptions of evil and the chasms of mistrust that brought the Israelis and Palestinians to the brink of what looked like all-out war last week.
The Palestinians claim Juddah was the victim of torture by Jewish settlers, an outrage that was fresh in the minds of the mob that lynched two reserve Israeli soldiers in Ramallah on Thursday, leading to Israel’s retaliation with rockets from helicopter gunships. The Israelis insist Juddah was the victim of a common car crash, something they had nothing to do with.
Last Tuesday, Juddah’s family found his body near his West Bank home and took him to Ramallah Hospital, where doctors found that his skull was fractured, his right eye damaged, several bones were broken and patches of skin were burned severely, doctors said.
Noting that Juddah’s clothes were undamaged and that his car was neither bloody nor burned, the doctors concluded that Juddah had been tortured to death and the accident staged. The news spread like wildfire through the West Bank, helping to incite more violence between Israeli troops and Palestinian rioters.
“This is the most criminal event I have seen in my life,” said Dr. Hosni Atari, the hospital director, showing photographs of Juddah’s wounds. “He was stripped and tortured. For us, there is no doubt about it.”
Cite this clipping
"Death of an Arab painter colors fabric of enmity in Mideast," Chicago Tribune, 15 October 2000. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2000-063. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2000-063
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Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
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