A spooked cow killed a
Palestinian man who was trying to slaughter the beast on Saturday during the
Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha, a Gaza health official said.
Muslims
around the world slaughter sheep, cows and goats, during the four-day holiday
that began Friday, giving away much of the meat to the poor. The Muslim holiday
commemorates the sacrifice by the Prophet Ibrahim,
known to Christians and Jews as Abraham.
But
accidents are common as people frequently buy animals to slaughter themselves
instead of paying professional butchers. The festive atmosphere at the site of
the slaughtering also tends to make the animals fidgety.
The
52-year-old man who died was trampled to death, and another three people were
seriously injured when the cow ran wild in the southern Gaza Strip town of
Rafah, said health
official Ashraf al-Kidra.
In
all, he said some 150 people were hospitalized in the Palestinian
territory with knife wounds or other injuries
caused by animals trying to break away.
Two
similar incidents occurred in Pakistan on
Saturday.
In
the northwestern city of Peshawar, a bull escaped from untrained butchers and
injured three people, including a 12-year-old boy. Police official Abdul Waheed
said dozens of people chased to the bull and it was recaptured an hour later.
In
southern city of Karachi, a young boy also was lightly wounded by a runaway
bull. Owner
Abdul Quddoos said it took two hours to reclaim the
animal.
In
Gaza, where over a third of the territory's 1.6 million residents live in
poverty and nearly 80 percent rely on food aid, few people ever eat fresh meat
regularly, making the holiday an even bigger treat.
During
the holiday's first day in particular, Gaza's sandy alleyways and main streets
are drenched in blood and entrails. Curious, war-hardened children stick their
hands in the blood and watch in fascinated crowds as their elders butcher the
livestock.
Impoverished
families save all year to pay for an animal to slaughter, with many families
often pooling their resources.
A
kilogram (2.2 pounds) of fresh beef or lamb costs about $12 in Gaza — more than
a day's wage for a worker, said Ibrahim al-Kidra, an agriculture ministry
official. He is related to the health official.
He
said some 3,700 cows and sheep are imported for consumption on a regular day,
while 42,000 are brought in for the holidays. Most of Gaza's livestock comes
through Israel's
commercial crossing with the territory, he added, although female breeding
sheep are still smuggled in.
This
represents a change from years past, when Palestinians hauled most of their
sheep, goats and cows through smuggling tunnels linking Gaza to Egypt,
a move they resorted to because of Israel's blockade on the territory imposed
when militant group Hamas seized power in 2007. That blockade has since
loosened.
During
the festivities, residents distribute at least a third of their meat to the
poor, and another third to neighbors, giving the celebration a sense of communal
solidarity.
Public
slaughtering is common in Gaza, where professional butcher shops are pricey.
"It's
neither healthy nor good. But it's a tradition," al-Kidra said. "Most
Gazans can't believe they've finally managed to get an animal. They ask themselves:
why should I pay for a butcher when I can slaughter it myself?"
Commentators
also were disapproving.
"Killing
an animal has standards," Sami Abu Ajwa pleaded on Gaza's al-Quds radio
Saturday. He
said under Islamic law animals shouldn't see each other being killed, they
should be soothed, fed water and slaughtered quickly with a sharp knife to make
the suffering minimal.Those
regulations are widely ignored through the Arab world however.
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