Nizal Awassat

Aug 4, 2002 - Nizal Awassat, 52, of Jerusalem was killed when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire with a pistol near the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem's Old City.

Shortly before noon, a Palestinian gunman opened fire, killing him and injuring the driver on a vehicle of Bezeq, Israel's telecommunications company, killing Yekutiel Amitai and wounding the driver. Border policemen exchanged fire with the gunman, killing him. Nizal Awassat, from the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood in East Jerusalem, who was sitting in the coffee shop opposite the walls of the Old City when the shooting began, was killed in the exchange of fire.

"He was a good man, of course, but more importantly, he was a regular man, who got caught up in the madness because he wanted to support his wife and 12 children," said Hassain Awassat, village leader of the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood in East Jerusalem, of his relative who was killed. Nizal, a construction worker by trade, had worked little recently because of back problems.

Nizal Awassat is survived by his wife and 11 children, aged 8 to 30.