Category: Gaza - Page 12 - International Solidarity Movement

Gaza families still enduring the aftermath of 2014 Israeli assault

13th January 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Beit Hanoun, Gaza strip, occupied Palestine

A year and a half after the last massive assault on the Gaza Strip the promised reconstruction has not yet appeared. However, what has not ceased to appear since then are new sequels and side effects due to the Israeli forces’ use of military equipment in residential areas and against the civilian population of Gaza.

Amar points out effects of shrapnel on his cupboard

In Beit Hanoun, a town north of the Gaza Strip located on the border with the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948, ISM visited Amar Abu Janad and his family.

Amar with his family wm — Amar with his family

Amar is 42 years and has 9 children. His house was bombed during the last slaughter while the family took refuge in a UN school. “At the school we slept on the stairs and we bathed in the toilets, where there was no running water. Besides, the whole school was very dirty and many days the food they gave us was in bad shape.”

In addition, he explains, the school where they took refuge was one of the many schools of UN attacked by the Israeli military during those 51 days of bombing. In one such attack against the school Amar’s uncle died.

During a ceasefire the family decided to go home to get some clothes, and “everything smelled like death… the street, the houses …” they said.

Besides the home Amar lost his car, with which he earned his living as a taxi driver.

Amar is trying to sustain his family selling the utensils that he manufactures reusing materials recovered from the ruins of the town

The family tells us how two weeks into the slaughter the Zionist army entered Beit Hanoun by land, shooting, in addition to live fire, smoke bombs and tear gas into all the homes, forcing the families to flee as they “could see the tanks entering our street . . . “

A wall of the family's home, repaired after the bombing — A wall of the family’s home, repaired after the Israeli attack

One of the family's rooms, partially renovated — One of the family’s rooms, partially renovated

Amar’s wife explained that “after the war many people began to suffer from rare diseases. When we returned to live in what was left of our home we all started to suffer from skin problems and our oldest daughter’s eyes started to hurt and got very red. We took her to the doctor and he told us that she had a chronic problem. Periodically she suffers attacks during which we have to put some drops in her eyes 18 times a day. These droplets are so expensive and scarce that the doctor didn’t sell them to us or let us take them home, so during the crises we have to visit the doctor 18 times a day.” She also spoke of another child: “our 6 year old son started seeing double. At first we thought he was joking. . . . Recently he has begun to wear glasses, but still doesn’t see well. The doctor told us that after the war many children have begun to suffer such problems.”

Due to the stress and tension experienced during the bombings, Amar suffers from strong muscular and back pains and his 15 years old daughter developed an eczema in her hair that still present today.

As he showed they ISM team the conditions under which they currently live, Amar exclaimed: “Israel and the foreign media said that the war was against Hamas … but then bombed our homes, our cars, our animals, schools, hospitals … I am not Hamas! Was my car a terrorist too? Were my animals terrorists?

“They test their new weapons against us, using forbidden weapons against civilian population . . . They kill women, children and animals… are they also from Hamas? They know we can’t escape, all our borders are closed… How can something like this happen on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea?”

At that point they were interrupted by a man in his 30s accompanied by his blind father. The wife of Amar explains that this “is our neighbour, weeks after the end of the war he woke up one day and he was blind, no one knows how it happened.”

When we were leaving Amar’s teenage son asked us, outraged, that we convey this message to the people in our countries: “We do not need charity or food parcels, we need freedom. We are not terrorists or criminals, we are normal people trying to live in peace.”

Israeli forces continue slaughtering Gazan protesters

30th December 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza strip, occupied Palestine

Last Friday, 25th of December another youth, 22-year-old Hani Wahdan, was killed in Shijaia in Gaza. One week before, 20-year-old Mohamed El Agha was killed in El Faraheen in Gaza.

Since the beginning of October Israeli snipers have killed unarmed demonstrators along Gaza’s fence almost every week, and injured hundreds with live fire.

Mohamed Abu Taima, 22 years old, is one of those injured by the Israeli snipers. He was shot in the leg minutes before the killing of Mohamed El Agha took place in the same area.

In the European Hospital of Khan Younees, 19-year-old Abdel Kareem Kalwaji lies in a bed beside Mohamed’s. He was shot a week before Mohamed; unfortunately the explosive dum-dum bullets used by the occupation completely destroyed both bones in one of his legs and one bone in the other leg. He has already undergone two surgeries and doctors say that he’ll need a lot of rehabilitation in order to move around by himself again.

When questioned regarding their reasons to demonstrate despite the high risk of getting shot, both answered that they do it for the liberation of Al Quds and Al Aqsa Mosque and in support of their brothers and sisters in the West Bank.

Egypt’s seawater pumping project endangers Gazan’s lives

December 24th 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, occupied Palestine

During recent months the subsidence of the land along the Egyptian border have become a great danger for the population of Rafah.

Land subsidence next to the city of Rafah

This is due to the Egyptian project that has been pumping seawater all along its border with the Gaza Strip. The goal of this project is to flood the tunnels that provided access for the Palestinian people who have been locked in Gaza since the implementation of the blockade imposed by the Israeli occupation.

Abdel Aziz El Atar, Head of the Civil Defence Office in Rafah, explains how they are receiving daily calls alerting about the appearance of new holes in the land, the flooding of more agricultural areas by seawater or the flooding of more homes.

All of this continues to happen despite the fact that most of the homes near the Egyptian border have been evacuated due to the flooding and the high risk of land subsidence.

The staff of the Civil Defence Office regrets not having the technology and the equipment required to cope with this situation, “we fear that with the winter and the heavy rains it will just get worse…” “Besides the flooding, we are suffering from the contamination of the aquifers with sea water, the salinization of the croplands… And moreover, this project broke several pipelines that supplied drinking water and destroyed as well the sewage system in some areas near the border”.

All these dangers and consequences had been warned by a great number of international NGO’s that saw that project as “a new threat for the food security and the access to drinking water for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”. In addition, this poses a serious threat for the environment, both for Egypt and Palestine.

For this reason, the Palestinian Government in Gaza demands that international agencies, such as the UN, take the required measures in order to stop and cancel this project, that represents a clear violation of the international and humanitarian law and of the international conventions and principles regarding common cross-border water resources.

ISM also met the Head of Security at the border, who said that actually their biggest concern is that “the wall that separates Egypt from Gaza has been sinking in several points… we are afraid that during the next months it will collapse completely, making it almost impossible for us to keep the security of the border… several security posts have been already displaced due to land subsidence”.

Egyptian soldiers fixing parts of the wall that had been destroyed by land subsidence.

He continues, “However, that’s not the only aggression we suffer from the Egyptian authorities; everyday, the Egyptian soldiers insult and open fire both against the Palestinian civilian population from Rafah and against our security forces. Two weeks ago for example, they shot three workers that were fixing a subsidence near the border. After that, the soldiers entered Palestinian territory and kidnapped the three injured workers. Until now, the government from Gaza doesn’t have any news about them.” He also adds, “Just another example happened a few days ago, when the Egyptian soldiers shot a drinking water deposit”.

Both interviewees demand the international community to put pressure on the Egyptian Authorities. “That’s the only way of stopping this humanitarian and environmental crime, as locally, the Egyptian government enjoys the support of both Israel and Ramallah’s governments on that project”.

Egyptian workers working on the pipes that pump seawater along the border

Demonstrator injured last week in Gaza undergoing two surgeries

December 11th, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Karni border crossing, Gaza, occupied Palestine

Ahmad has to undergo a second surgery soon

Last week, during the demonstration at Karni Border Crossing, Ahmad Nabil El-Akhsham (28 years old) was shot in the leg. He was there, as he had been every Friday since the beginning of October. At some point he and the other protestors saw a female IOF soldier pointing her gun at them and immediately he felt a very intense pain in his leg, “it was as if I was receiving a 1000V electric shock”.

The next thing he remembers is that the other demonstrators where carrying him towards the road where the ambulances were waiting. The ambulance couldn’t reach them because the soldiers were shooting towards the medics if they approached the demonstrators.

He arrived unconscious to the hospital, due to the heavy loss of blood. After a first surgery, the doctors explained that the way ha was carried to the ambulance highly aggravated the injury, as he was carried by a group of unexperienced youth who were mostly trying not to get shot.

The shot blew away all of his calf and broke his bone in many small pieces. During the first surgery, they put 5 metal bars in order to try to save his leg. Next time the doctors will try to perform a graft in order to reconstruct the calf.

We asked Ahmad why he kept on going to the demonstrations, and this what he said: “We must show that the people in Gaza, West Bank and the 48 lands are all the same, we are all Palestinians and we are united. We fight together for our land. I’m not afraid of dying for my land”.

In Gaza, another farmer shot by a sniper for working his land

December 8th, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Khan Younis, Gaza strip, occupied Palestine

Mohamed Abu Taima, 29, had to undergo two surgeries

A week ago Mohamed Abu Taima, 29 years-old and father of a small girl, was working his land 450m from the separation fence when an Israeli sniper shot him. At 4pm, he had arrived to his land in Al Faraheen, Khan Younees, South of the Gaza Strip. He was shot a few minutes after he started to work. The bullet passed through one of his legs and exploded inside the other one.

The bullet went through one leg and exploded in the other one

A few minutes after arriving in the hospital Mohamed underwent a first surgery, and days after a second one. Until now, the doctors don’t know if Mohamed will ever be able to walk properly again.

These kind of attacks have been frequent during the past two weeks. Several farmers were expelled from their lands by the Israeli snipers when they were working or intended to work their lands between 400 and 500m from the fence, meaning outside of the “buffer zone” imposed by the occupation.