Category: Features

11 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

On April 8th, around noon, the southern villages around Khan Younis were shaken up when four artillery shells were fired from a tank. One of them hit a house located in ‘Abasan village. Najah Harb Qdeih (41) was making bread outside and her daughter Nedal Ibrahim Qdeih (19) was with her, they both instantly died in the blast. The bodies of the victims were riddled with dozens of the sharp projectiles that were contained in the missiles which the Israeli army had ruthlessly fired at their house.

Two other daughters, Fida’a (15) and Nida’a (12) remain in hospital. Nida’a is critically injured and is struggling to survive; she has shrapnel in her brain and is currently waiting to be transferred from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to the West Bank to undergo surgery.

The next day, her older sister Fida’a, who had not fully understood what had happened yet, asked for her mother. They told her that she died. Then she asked about her sister, and had to hear that she too died. 19 year old Nidal was engaged and was supposed to get married next month. The family was re-organizing the house to prepare for the wedding. No more: she has been snatched away from this life and there is only grieving to be done by the remaining family members.

The missile contained hundreds of small propelling projectiles, which riddled the bodies of the women and the children, the walls, the doors, the plants and the trees. All are pierced. Seats were smeared in blood.
This missile is a weapon designed to kill as many people as possible, to clear as many lives as possible. There is no justification for this, it is not possible to call it defence. This missile was not created or meant to kill a single person that threatens the safety of someone else, it is made to kill as many people as possible. You cannot see where the propelling artillery ends up: it entails a high probability of killing innocent people. And it has intentionally been used against civilians, by what they call “the most moral army in the world”.

The women are mourning the family losses and are receiving visitors bringing their condolences. Two girls, sisters and daughters of the victims, stare into the void, their eyes have cried all tears possible. Their faces state incomprehension of the unjustifiable killings of their dear ones, by a missile that is designed to kill as many people as possible and used against those that have the only guilty to be born in the wrong place – the Palestinians from Gaza.

One of the women in the mourning place angrily exclaims: “They claim they are democratic, but we are paying for their democracy with our blood, our sons and daughters, our lives, our homes, our land, our future and our dreams!”

One of the girls’ cousins was desperate: “Should the international community take care of civilians or not? Where are they now? Where are they? All in Libya? They kill our children, they bomb our wives and our daughters and where is the UN?”

UPDATE:
Nida’a will not now go to the West Bank for surgery. Her relatives say: “Now she can not move, or speak, or feel any part of her body; whichever movement will drive her to death. There is basically no more hope for her, we are only waiting her to die.”

13 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

WARNING: Contains graphic images some may find disturbing.

On Friday April 8th at approximately 5.30 pm a drone dropped a bomb on a group of children and young people who were playing football next to a school in the Al-Shijaija neighborhood, east of Gaza City, near the border. People hurried to come to the rescue of the injured when a second bomb hit the exact same place. A child and a young man were killed, while 10 more civilians were injured, including a paramedic and six children.

It took a day to identify the brutally dismembered body of a young man after initially only a headless body was found. It belonged to 23 year old Bilal Mohammed Al A’arer.

Mahmoud Wa’el Al-Jaro is the name that goes with the other young face, drained of the joyous expression it had until the vicious attack. The bewildered dead darkness in his eyes and his half open mouth makes one feel and see the moment. A split second: the abrupt discontinuity of his activity, the inner alarm that causes panic, the anxiety that instantly swells to mortal fear and is immediately followed by death, mercilessly cooling the intensity of his last life experience. Ten years old he was and he has paid dearly for trying to enjoy his young life, playing football under Gaza’s dangerous sky.

In the mourning tent, one of Mahmoud’s cousins, Yasser el-Jaro, explains how this is not the first time that the Israeli army has targeted children. Ramadeen Mohammed el-Jaro was nine when in 2003 a bullet, fired from an Apache, hit him in the head. He was on his way home from school when he was killed.

“They deliberately target children, it can’t be an error. They have the most advanced technological weaponry. They kill civilians because they want the population of Gaza to rise up against the resistance. They want people to start hating the resistance, but it is not the resistance who kills our children. We ask the international community to protect our children and our women from Israel.”

The injured were brought to Shifa hospital in Gaza City. 12 year old Jaber El-Kouss was one of the boys playing football when they were directly targeted by one of the drones, that have been buzzing loudly in Gaza’s sky over the last two weeks. But life goes on, despite the constant threat of violence. “This is our life. What else can we do?”, sighs one of the men in the hospital room, indicating that life in Gaza is uncertain and the threat of destruction and violence is always there. Jaber’s father, Salim, jokingly says the injured have themselves to blame as they have chosen to live despite the risks. While the people around him are laughing, Jaber misses the joke and feels accused. Softly he says: “But daddy, I was only playing…” His punishment for playing is severe: seven pieces of shrapnel pierced his chest and belly, while other pieces are stuck in his arm.

Next to him lays Osama Mahmoud El-Ghoula (15), he wasn’t playing football with his friends, but he heard the bomb and ran to the scene to see what was going on. While running a second bomb dropped from the sky, injuring young Osama. He went home, but was afraid to tell his parents what had happened and did not want to worry them. “He said; ‘Mom, I just want water and need some sleep’. I saw the blood coming through his shirt and lifted it to see what had happened to him and then he lost consciousness”, says his worried mother, Sana El-Ghoula. Osama is now waiting for surgery to remove the shrapnel from his belly.

In the third bed lays Riziq Said El Imalwi, an 18 year old university student. He was returning home after visiting the graveyard where his two brothers, who were martyred by the Israeli occupation forces, are buried. While walking, the ambulance stopped to ask for directions of the bombed place. He drove along with them to point out the place and when he got out, he was hit in the arms, chest and legs by shrapnel from the second bombing. Riziq lays silent in the hospital bed, while his saddened father Said says: “These are crimes against humanity, they shoot civilians! We are all sad, but keep on hoping for peace in all of the country.”