Mohammed Hiji and Ahmed Ishnayawra, both 14 years old according to medical sources, were killed in Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza city, on Saturday 21st of March by what is suspected to be Israeli ordinance, left unexploded after January’s invasion. Mohammed was in the store, where he was working to support his family, as his father is handicapped as a result of an accident that caused him the loss of his right hand.
Mohammed Hiji, killed by Israeli explosive
Ahmed brought the object to the store where it exploded causing the death of the two boys. Nobody else was in the store at the time of the explosion, so the details of the incident will never be known. What is sure is that Mohammed and Ahmed are two more innocent victims of a war that Israel has started and is refusing to cease. During the recent onslaught on Gaza alone, at least 313 children have been killed and 1,606 have been injured, according to the PCHR report, updated on the 19th of March
On the 21st of March, organizers kicked-off the Jerusalem Capital of Arab Culture festival despite an official ban and heavy police repression by the Israeli Authorities. The festival, which is supposed to continue through 2009, has been banned in occupied East Jerusalem. Organizers were determined to defy the ban in order to celebrate Palestinian heritage in the city. 20 participants were arrested for taking part in the activities, and dozens more detained.
Israeli police and soldiers were heavily deployed in Jerusalem’s old city and in the surrounding neighborhoods. In the early morning of the 21st, at least two organizations that were hosting events were raided by Israeli forces. At 1pm, hundreds of balloons with the national colors of Palestine were released over the city. Several of the balloon releasers were subsequently arrested.
Kids sack racing as part of festival events
Police stopping clowns
Kids playing
Additionally, children’s games, traditional dabke dancing, and musical acts were conducted near Damascus Gate and in the main streets of the old city. Israeli police harassed several of these activities, while letting others continue unhindered. At around 3:30pm, a group of clowns began leading a crowd drummers and celebrators through the old city. More than two dozen police and soldiers surrounded this group, detaining the clowns along with three international solidarity activists. After around half an hour in the police station, everyone was released.
Palestinian political, cultural, and civil organizations say that activities celebrating Jerusalem as a capital of Arab culture will continue throughout the year in East Jerusalem. Several other Palestinian cities are also hosting events as part of the festival, including Hebron, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Ramallah.
Sheikh Jarrah, Occupied East Jerusalem: Israeli police violently disbanded an event held in conjunction with the Jerusalem Capital of Arab Culture festival in Sheikh Jarrah, occupied East Jerusalem.
At least seven people, including one American and one Danish solidarity activist, have been arrested. One middle–aged Palestinian resident was thrown into a police car with severe bleeding to her head and nose after being roughly handled by police.
Mrs abu Khdeir being violently arrested outside of the protest tent
Om Kamel al Kurd, Shekrimah, Sabrishraed, Salahshjamil, Hamamibishop Attallah Hanna just before the start of the ceremony for Al Quds, the capital of arab culture
Sh Raed Salah praying with residents after Israeli forces tried to destroy the protest tent
Around twenty policemen arrived at the protest tent in Sheikh Jarrah, which was erected to protest the evictions of Palestinian residents in the neighborhood. House evictions and demolition orders number in the hundreds in areas of occupied East Jerusalem, including Silwan and Shu’fat refugee camp.
In November 2008, the al-Kurd family was evicted from their home, and 27 more housing units in the neighborhood also face eviction. The Sheikh Jarrah community has created a tent to protest these pending evictions and to demand that the al-Kurd family be allowed to return to their house. Organizers of the banned Jerusalem Capital of Arab Culture festival attempted to hold an event at the tent as part of a year of celebration of Arab culture.
The police began beating the crowd, most of whom consisted of male residents of the neighborhood as they were praying outside of the tent. At this time, at least seven people, including three female community residents and the two solidarity activists, were dragged off and put into police cars.
Israeli Authorities have banned the festival from taking place in occupied East Jerusalem, which started on the 21st of March. At least 20 organizers have been arrested for attempting to celebrate Arab culture in the city of Jerusalem over the past two days.
We were back at Faraheen this morning accompanying farmers again, eying the jeeps driving along the Israeli border while our farmers removed the irrigation pipes from one of the fields we have visited regularly. Since Mohammed was shot in the leg, the farmer here has decided to give up on this field, its convenient well, and its half-grown parsley crop – 200,000 shekels worth – in case of further injury or death of harvesters. It was a quiet morning, thank goodness.
Giving up on irrigating parsley too dangerous to pick
Art from children at the Al Amal Centre, Khan Younis
Tristan is conscious and was breathing on his own until he caught pneumonia. He has a long way to go and it’s not known what will be ahead – for sure, more surgery, including on his damaged right eye.
A second time this week we spotted an Israeli gun boat traveling at 3 miles from the shoreline, all the way from near Deir al Balah to Gaza city (it kept pace with our shared taxi) as fishermen were out trying to get in a catch in, and inevitably the next day we heard that a fisherman had been shot; Deeb Al Ankaa who we understand to now be in Kamal Odwan hospital.
I met a great Manchester guy this week, Dr Sohail of Medical International Surgical Team (MIST) who has come here to do good work with peoples’ bones, for example working with amputees who have had limbs removed at a high point, to enable the otherwise impossible attachment of prosthetic limbs (if Israel lets the prosthetics through the border, which apparently is another problem of the siege…).
Thinking about bones, I immediately thought of Wafa. After wincing at the picture of her in hospital the day after soldiers shot out her kneecap, Dr Sohail said “I’m a kneecap man!” and told me a series of incomprehensible surgical things he might be able to do to give her back some movement. We rang her family today while standing in the Faraheen field (it’s a good time to get your phone-calling done) to say that Dr Sohail will see her in June if I go and take a photo of her medical records for him beforehand.
Dr Sohail spoke of the several limitations medical people are under here – mostly no access to the latest equipment – if any gets in, no access to training on how to use it – and of course very little of the ongoing training amongst their international peers that people doing tricky surgical things need to have.
In the last days there have been renewed calls for an International Criminal Court investigation into war crimes in Gaza, including for example “white flag killings” by Israeli soldiers. One of the big problems in the way is that during the attacks there were no forensic pathologists in Gaza trained to a level that would meet the requirements. (They are trying to send some people outside for training now, ready for the next time…) A second big problem is that when the International Criminal Court representatives tried to get in through Rafah to investigate the situation, Egypt refused to let them through, so they missed the February 8 deadline for submitting evidence.
And it was never going to be easy. Here is an example. One of the Al Quds Red Crescent medics talked about getting through to some of the surviving Samouni kids trapped with dead adults, on the first Red Cross/Red Crescent evacuation permitted by Israel. He said the kids (who they found in circumstances that left some of the medics who reached them, traumatised themselves) said the adults had been shot, and they had covered over the bodies themselves.
The medics knew it was important to try to take the adults’ bodies out, but the children were starving, dehydrated, and in a state of collapse. Since Israel had not permitted the medics to take ambulances, and several miles had to be covered, the medics found a donkey cart for the children. The Red Cross asked Israel to be allowed to take a donkey to pull the cart, but Israel said no.
My medic friend says: “We put the children on the donkey cart and pulled it ourselves, hurrying to get out before 4pm which was the deadline for the evacuation. And there was no room for the bodies. So a lot of time passed before those bodies could be retrieved, and while we have the verbal testimony of the children, we don’t have an early medical assessment of the adults bodies.”
I was called in to PressTV to give an interview today about what I witnessed myself, and it turned out this is because Israeli soldiers have themselves started to admit some of what went on, in the Israeli press today. This has been covered by the TimesOnline, and the International Middle East Media Centre. It includes an anonymous solider who ’says that he was told “we should kill everyone there (Gaza). Everyone there is a terrorist.”‘
Every year we remember 16th March. We remember a kind, insightful, talented person committed to the plight of the Palestinian people, who genuinely had the courage of her convictions. Her name was Rachel Corrie. This year, the anniversary of her death comes in the wake of Israel’s massive assault on the Gaza Strip. We believe Rachel would want the world to remember the 1,400 Palestinians killed before she is remembered herself. Now, six long years after her death, the situation in Gaza is even more desperate than when Rachel bore witness to it. Six years on we still demand justice. We still demand that the international community hold the Israeli military and government responsible for the murder of Rachel and so many Palestinian civilians. We also demand that the US justice system holds responsible the Caterpillar company which continues to provide the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) with the military D-9 bulldozers, which killed not only Rachel but a number of Palestinians and have demolished thousands of Palestinian homes.
It wasn’t possible for ISM volunteers to enter the Gaza Strip for several years due to the clampdown of the Erez crossing, so today was the first time ISM activists managed to commemorate the anniversary in Gaza itself. Some of the activists who volunteered with ISM Rafah in 2003 were able to compare the situation then and now. Different facets of occupation are manifest in 2009 – the oppressive wall along the Rafah border with Egypt has been cut down but has been replaced by siege and blockade; the brutality endured by the residents of Rafah’s border areas has now touched every single person throughout the Gaza Strip. From 2002 to 2005 over 3,000 Palestinian homes were bulldozed in Rafah. Now, in just 22 days, thousands more were destroyed throughout the entire Gaza Strip. 100,000 Palestinians have been left homeless by air missile strikes and shelling with many families now living in tents on the rubble of their homes.
This is a highly poignant day for us, so to mark it in a positive and inspiring way, we joined five young Palestinian artists to create a mural on one of the few remaining sections of the Israeli wall on the Rafah-Egypt border strip. The same wall whose construction saw the creation of a buffer zone hundreds of metres deep, which gnawed away at vast swathes of residential neighbourhoods, including the one Rachel died trying to safeguard. The same wall from where fellow ISM activist, Tom Hurndall, was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier from a watchtower less than a month after Rachel was killed. The same wall that for years was intended to imprison Palestinian people. The same wall that was finally destroyed by the Palestinian people.
As the artists began painting the wall, enlivening it with colourful symbols of defiance, Israeli F-16 fighter jets were heard flying over Rafah. Despite Israel’s announcement of a “unilateral ceasefire” on 18th January, the Israeli Air Force continues to unilaterally bomb Rafah and other areas in the Gaza Strip almost daily.. Most of the international journalists have left and the international community considers the war as being over, but Palestinian civilians are still being killed and injured by Israeli attacks on a regular basis. Fortunately, today we weren’t bombed by Israeli aircraft. Maybe because we were protected by the “Palestinian Air Force”. Palestinian children from the Lifemakers Center along with kids from the nearby al-Barazil refugee camp responded to the Israeli military flying F-16s by flying kites! 14 kites were flown in memory of the 14 hundred Palestinians killed recently in Gaza. Another kite sent our love to Rachel.
This was also a symbolic action against the crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade. Gaza has been under siege for nearly two years now and can aptly be described as the world’s largest open-air prison with over 1.5 million people locked in by land, sea and air. After the Free Gaza Movement voyages challenged the blockade by sea last year, followed by the Viva Palestina convoy challenging the siege by land last week, Palestinian children symbolically broke the control of Gazan airspace today.
A delegation from Code Pink also succeeded to gain entry recently and celebrated International Women’s Day with the courageous women of Gaza on 8th March. Rachel’s parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie joined them, commenting on their visit, “Despite the pain, we have once again felt privileged to enter briefly into the lives of Rachel’s Palestinian friends in Gaza. We are moved by their resilience and heartened by their song, dance, and laughter amidst the tears.”
Maybe the soaring kites were seen by some of the internationals protesting today on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, against the Egyptian authorities’ denial to allow them access to Gaza. They included Jordanian parliamentarians and Greek engineers aiming to assist reconstruction efforts in Gaza. However, all of this is not enough. We must call again on the international community to mobilise against the genocidal siege on Gaza.
Tear down the Apartheid Wall
The Israeli Occupation Forces attempted to kill another American ISM activist, Tristan Anderson, three days ago in the stalwart West Bank village of Ni’lin. Tristan, our thoughts and prayers are with you. Just as today we stood at the destroyed wall of Rafah, commemorating the sacrifice of Rachel, one day we will stand together with Tristan at the destroyed wall of Ni’lin to commemorate the sacrifice of Ahmed Mousa (10), Yousef Amira (17), Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22) and Mohammed Khawaje (20), the four civilian martyrs of Ni’lin. Despite the murders of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, despite the attempted assassinations of Brian Avery and Tristan Anderson, despite the injuries, abductions, illegal deportations and denials of entry that we suffered, we are back. ISM is still here, and will continue to support Palestinian non-violent resistance.
Today, six years after the martyrdom of Rachel; three days after the shooting of Tristan; two months after the Palestinians ousted the IOF from the Gaza Strip; 42 years after the occupation of West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip; 61 years after the Naqba; we still say free Palestine! End the occupation! Peace with justice and dignity! We should remember Rachel and all that she stood for. Similarly we must never let the world forget all the innocent Palestinian souls who perished without mercy. Their fate is already slipping from the collective memory of the international community, fading from the headlines of a fickle corporate media. It is time this manufactured catastrophe ends so that Rachel’s death and the deaths of countless Palestinians were not in vain.
