ISM Gaza
20th April 2010
Israeli army shot several rounds of live ‘warning’ fire at about 150 peaceful protesters who entered the so called ‘security belt.’ This belt consists of 300 meters of Palestinian land alongside the borderline. Israelis enforce a no-go ‘rule’ for Palestinians with lethal weapons.
As for the Israeli army, they cross to the Palestinian side regularly. Their tanks leave a fresh trail of destruction in the fields upon each incursion.
The demonstration took place at noon, 19th April 2010, in the Nadha border area near the town of Rafah in the south of Gaza Strip. The organisers were the Popular Campaign Against the Buffer Zone, a coalition of people living and farming in a buffer zones across Gaza and a number of political parties and civil society organizations.
A group of about 20 local women, some carrying pictures of their family members in Israeli jails and local residents, joined the march. This area has been exposed to the extreme violence over the years resulting in loss of lives and destruction of property. Several local men talked about family members killed by Israelis and the injuries they themselves sustained.
They marched with the ISM volunteers to about 30 metres from the border, where Israelis placed a barbed wire following the previous demonstration which ended with marchers walking to the border fence and putting several Palestinian flags.
This time they were met with repeated bursts of fire lasting altogether for about 10 minutes.
At the other side near the Israeli observation tower, the two army jeeps which where there when the demonstrators arrived with the ‘hammer’ positioned couple of hundred metres away, were joined by another five jeeps with soldiers being positioned inside and outside their vehicles.
Fortunately nobody was hurt.