Palestinians plan to turn Dawabsha home into a museum

PA offers to donate $1 million to build memorial structure next to house burned in deadly attack by alleged Jewish terrorist

The West Bank home of a Palestinian family set alight in a deadly July 2015 attack by an alleged Jewish terrorist is to be turned into a museum, the brother of one of the victims said Sunday.

Amiram Ben-Uliel allegedly killed three members of the Dawabsha family — parents Saad and Riham, and 18-month old baby Ali Saad — when he hurled firebombs through the window in a pre-dawn attack while the family was sleeping. The only surviving member of the family, 5-year-old Ahmed, was seriously injured.

Ben-Uliel was charged with murder on Sunday; his wife and parents said he was innocent.

In an interview with the NRG news website, Saad’s brother Nasser said that the house would be turned into a museum to “perpetuate the crimes of the occupation.”

The Palestinian Authority announced that it would donate $1 million to build a museum next to the burned house, “to receive visitors from Palestine and the entire world from where they will continue to a tour of the burnt house in order to observe the crimes carried out by the settlers and to illustrate how the settlers endanger the Palestinians.”

Saad and Riham Dawabsha, with baby Ali. All three died when the Dawabsha home in the West Bank village of Duma was firebombed, by suspected Jewish extremists, on July 31, 2015 (Channel 2 screenshot)

Dawabsha added that the office of PA President Mahmoud Abbas was in charge of the project, which would be carried out by employees of the Palestinian Ministry of Engineering. “There is already an organized plan for the whole structure,” he said.

The brother stressed that the house would be kept in the condition it was left in after the attack, “with the exception of a cosmetic arrangement of the objects in order to allow people to enter the rooms.”

There are already various items on display in the house, including Ali’s scorched stroller with a Palestinian flag, a dried-up bunch of flowers and a photo of the family.

Entrance to the museum will be free, “as the aim is to expose as many people as possible to the crime perpetuated against the Palestinians and the danger of the occupation and the settlements,” Dawabsha said, adding that donations would however be gratefully accepted.