Interview with Dr. Basman Alashi in Gaza

11th April 2015 |Valeria Cortes, International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Occupied Palestine

“You corner me, you kill me, and on top of that you ask me not to defend myself. Human beings in this world have the right to defend themselves. We, as Palestinians, have the right to defend our land and our families by all means available”, said the Dr. Basman Alashi.

The night of the 17th of July 2014 the Israeli occupation forces bombed the Al Wafaa Hospital, in Shijaia, Gaza Strip. The hospital´s speciality was the rehabilitation of paralyzed patients.

This is the moving testimony of Dr. Basman Alashi, its director:

Picture of Dr. Basman
Dr. Basman Alashi


How is it possible to reach the point of bombing a hospital full of patients and medical staff?

“The UN told me that, according to a report from the Israeli occupation forces, the bombing of the hospital was due to the fact that there were weapons within its facilities … I can assure you that this report is completely false; the hospital opened its doors to the international press and to all the foreigners who freely inspected our facilities without finding any weapons at all. Despite all the overwhelming evidence, our hospital was bombed in the middle of the night, with its patients, medical staff, and some international witnesses, still inside the buildings.”


What were the consequences of the bombing by the Zionist occupation forces?

“Whilst under Israeli fire, we evacuated the remaining 17 paralyzed patients that still were inside the hospital. We couldn’t take any medication or equipment; we evacuated them just with sheets. That’s why during a cease-fire we asked the Red Cross to take us to rescue some medicines that were vital for our patients. However the Red Cross refused and we had to go by ourselves. We were only able to stay 45 minutes at the ruins of what was the Al Wafaa Hospital. The bombings continued, and we could only recover a very small amount of medicine, as bombs had destroyed most of it.

Four members of our staff were injured during the bombing. Luckily these weapons of war injured none of the patients. However they did suffer a lot during the emergency evacuation. Four of the paralyzed patients needed oxygen and many of them breathe through tubes, that’s why it was so dangerous to move them from one hospital to another; under conditions of intense aggression, under the attack of lethal weapons used against a defenceless civil population.

We could have lost some of them. It was very hard because we had to evacuate them in regular vehicles, three or four in every vehicle. Luckily we were able to move them all without any loss, due to the heroic efforts of our nurses and hospital staff. Without them all would be dead.

The patients suffered a lot during the Israeli attack on the hospital, some of them still hear the explosions of the bombs and are afraid of the start of another bombing. One of our patients, just 19 years old, refuses to enter to another hospital “the Al Wafa Hospital was bombed, my house was bombed, this hospital will also be bombed” he explained to me, terrified.

We are here to survive, to improve the lives of our children, of our patients. I can’t stand to see a small girl of barely 6 years old, to whom I can’t give the medicines she needs to survive and who can not leave Gaza to receive them. The only thing we want is for them to live with the same freedom as kids from any other place in the world.”

Destruction in Gaza


The Israeli occupation forces said that they bombed the hospital because there were weapons inside, this statement was firmly denied by many witnesses. In your opinion, what was the real reason for the attack that left a hospital as big and important as Al Wafaa reduced to rubble?

“The hospital was less than a kilometre from the fence that separates Gaza from the occupied territories. Our facilities had three big buildings, so it was just a military decision, given that those constructions blocked their way for a deeper land incursion. There wasn’t activity from the resistance inside or near the hospital installations.

I challenged the Israeli occupation forces to provide any proof of their reasons to bomb the hospital. They showed me a classified picture where, according to them, there was a rocket launcher from the resistance very near the hospital. However, the picture wasn’t from the hospital, it was from a place located almost five kilometres away. That proves that all the reasons provided by Israel were false. They just fabricated this story to justify the planned destruction of a hospital.

The Israeli occupation forces demanded we evacuate the hospital under fire and, as the facilities were under their control, it was Israel’s duty to protect the buildings. It was their obligation to preserve a hospital with 30 years history and an investment of more than 15 million dollars in equipment. Despite all this, far from protecting it’s medical facilities, they bombed them and destroyed it to the ground.”


The occupation forces point out that the attacks aren’t against the Palestinian people but against Hamas and the resistance. Do you have anything to say against the government of Gaza or the resistance?

“Against the resistance?” – asks the doctor with surprise – “We are the victims!” he clarifies. “In Gaza we have already had 8 years of suffering a terrible blockade by Israel. Our resistance is very basic. Israel has the lead, they have F16 planes, they have the tanks, war ships… they surround us! They deny us the right to defend our children, our women, our land, our homes, our own lives. It’s ridiculous. You corner me, you kill me, and you still ask me not to defend myself. Human beings in this world have the right to defend themselves. We, as Palestinians, have the right to defend our land and our families by all means available. The resistance is a way of defending our lives, it is our right.

Israel has the most powerful and destructive weapons; Israel is the one that the world should control.

Israel has committed genocide in Gaza while the world was looking. It assassinated children playing on the beach. Israel has killed children and women while they were sleeping in their homes and has bombed residential buildings without reason. Thousands of families have been left destroyed or without a home and all this took place before the eyes of the world. That’s why I blame Israel but also the international community.”

Ambulance in Gaza


What is the situation now regarding the reconstruction of the hospital?

“There are many organizations and countries who want to help us. However, due to the Israeli and Egyptian blockade, they find themselves unable to provide the materials necessary for the reconstruction, or to send to the Gaza Strip the funds necessary for funding this reconstruction. That’s why we started to raise funds through local activities. Even so the amount collected doesn’t cover the 0,01% of the amount needed for the reconstruction of the hospital.

A lot of people all around the world have said to me that they are sorry about what happened to the hospital, and that’s good but we need much more than that to be able to attend our patients and move forward. The blockade is affecting our patients terribly, and it’s impossible for us to provide the medical treatment that they urgently need. They don’t need charity, blankets, or clothes… they need to have the stability to be self-sufficient.

The blockade seriously affects the hospital, as we find ourselves unable to go back to a full medical service like we had before and we are unable to support the rehabilitation and healthy recovery of our patients. Of the 11.000 injured from the last Israeli aggression against Gaza, more than the 50% need rehabilitation. If in one or two years the hospital is not working as it was in the past, there will be an important segment of this population that will be left unable to manage by itself and to contribute to our society, affecting it at all the levels.

What we need from the world more than anything else is an end to the blockade, to allow the entrance of materials for the reconstructions; to allow us to rebuild the homes of our families that were destroyed by Israel. This way there will be peace. But if the blockade continues, peace will be further away every day. We are human; we want a normal life as in every other place in the world. For our kids to be able to grow in a normal house, not in a shelter or a tent, suffering from the cold, without a single blanket to cover them”.


How do you see the current situation and the future of Gaza?

“The people of Gaza are resilient. They live in the most difficult conditions but still smile. The kids keep playing and adapt themselves to all the conditions, but the rest of the world must know that this situation is not normal and for this to end the only solution is to lift the blockade. The blockade must end. It’s not enough to give the people a tent, or some food or a blanket. People need a house, a job, and the possibility of giving their children a good education and to travel abroad if they wish to.

To have the possibility of going to a hospital abroad if their condition requires it. Give us the freedom that the rest of the world enjoys, because we are not different from any other population on the planet. We just want to live in peace if we are given the opportunity and doing it in freedom. But, if that right is denied to us, we will fight until we conquer it… Inshallah!”.

VIDEO: Israel forces once again open fire at Palestinian farmers in Gaza

3rd April, 2015 | Miguel Hernández | Khuza’a, Gaza, Occupied Palestine

As soon as we arrived at the land where the farmers wanted to work, about 80 meters from the zionist fence which borders and cuts of the Gaza Strip, an Israeli occupation military jeep stopped in front of us. A group of soldiers left the car and started shooting while cowardly hiding behind a sand mound. From the first moment we used our speaker to let the soldiers know that there were just farmers working, that we were all civilians. After staying there for a few minutes shooting and shouting bad words to the farmers, such as “sharmuta” (bitch), they jumped again on the jeep and left.

Some people from the village came to ask the farmers to go home; they said it was too dangerous. The farmers didn’t listen and luckily they could finish their work without more trouble.

When we were almost done another family approached us and asked if one of us could go with them to a piece of land they have near where we were, at about 50 meters from the fence. We said yes and one of us left with them. The family were terrified the entire time, repeatedly asking us if there would be no problems. We could only tell, that hopefully not.

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Israeli Zionist military tower overlooking the farm fields of Khuza’a – photo by Rina Andolini

Once all the work was done and we were leaving the land, two of the youngest farmers explained to us how the father of one of them was killed in the last aggression, along with the brother of the other. They were killed by a rocket along with 4 other people.

During all the journey we could see, on the far side of the fence, the farmers from the nearby kibbutz working peacefully with their modern vehicles, tractors and even airplanes, while the Palestinian farmers locked in Gaza have to work only with their hands, almost lying in the ground, hiding from the zionist bullets and wondering if they will get killed today.

In less than two months the harvest season will commence, and hundreds of peasants will leave their homes ready to risk their lives in their attempts to harvest the crops that are supposed to feed their families. This year they are more afraid than ever, due to the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt. It has been impossible to enter Gaza for most of the international activists that would accompany them and serve as witnesses and protective presence.

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Farmlands early in the morning in Khuza’a, Gaza – photo by Rina Andolini

 

Last summer’s Israeli aggression is sending Gaza back to the Middle Ages

31st March | Miguel Hernández | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Zionist colonisers destroy the tools for self-sufficiency of Palestinians in Gaza

Months after the last massive Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, thanks to the social and independent media, everyone has read news and seen pictures of the attacks from the zionist regime against residential buildings, United Nations shelter-schools, hospitals, ambulances, mosques, churches and thousands of family homes.

However, little has been said about the almost complete destruction of Gaza’s industry and economy. As the Israeli Minister of Interior Eli Yishai said, the objective of the last operation was to “send Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all of its infrastructure.” One of the more terrible blows committed towards this end has been the total destruction of the Beit Hanoun industrial area.

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Factory for construction materials bombed by Israel last summer, in the Industrial Area of Beit Hanoun – photo by Miguel Hernández

There were around 50 factories in Beit Hanoun, from which only three have been able to resume work seven months after the end of the assault.

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This factory for canned foods was also attacked – photo by Miguel Hernández

The factories in this industrial area provided work for 25% to 30% of Gaza’s population. Among the destroyed factories are those for paper, construction materials, clothing, medical equipment, plastic products, food and livestock products.

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Owner of the Afanah company presented photos of some of the 800 cows killed by Israeli attacks – photo by Miguel Hernández

The agricultural industry has also been wounded by Israel’s summer attacks on Gaza. The owner of the Afanah Company showed us the pictures of his 800 cows killed by Israeli attacks during the last war on Gaza. Each cow was going to feed 7 families during the Eid holiday. Besides losing all his cows, Israel also destroyed the four fridges of the company, which contained 400 tons of meat.

Abu Fakhri Abu Ghais, from Beit Hanoun, explained how during the last massacre Israel killed his 17 sheep, and all his sons’ sheep, they destroyed all his farming equipment, worth over 15,000 US dollars. Israeli forces also destroyed the pumps for extracting the groundwater and the 20 tons of reserve of wheat seeds that Abu Fakhri had stored for the current year. The occupation also demolished the cabling that brought electricity to his village, Abu Safiya. He and his family now live in a tent without water or electricity, as his home was also destroyed.

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Abu Fakhri stands next to the remains of one of his seeding machines; the price of this machine is 10,000$ – photo by Miguel Hernández

He and his family now live in a tent without water or electricity, as his home was also destroyed. Given the blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip, the struggling government of Hamas informed him that they don’t know when they’ll be able to restore the power supply, as they do not have available wire that is long enough.

In a Bedouin village located at the North of Beit Lahia, Hassan Sharadkha invited the author and his companions for a cup of tea in the wood cabin that he has built next to the rubble of his home.  He showed us the pictures of everything he lost during the last summer at the hands of the Zionist occupation forces: 32 dunums of fruit and olive trees, 27 sheep and their stable, 2 cows, a 200 chicken farm, a horse, the water pump and the car he had just bought.

His older son, an electric engineer, was made unemployed because the solar panel company he worked for has also been bombed.

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Hassan Sharadkha and one of his grandsons show us the ruins of his home. He lived in this 4 story house with three of his sons and their families – photo by Miguel Hernández

Ninety per cent of the Palestinian farmers in Gaza live in similar or worse circumstances.

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Tractors and other farming equipment were clear targets for Israel during its last operation against the Gaza Strip – photo by Miguel Hernández

These attacks – against factories, farms, farming equipment and homes – were not by chance or accidental. These attacks demonstrate once again that the target of the genocidal Israeli colonialism is the Palestinian people itself, and that the war that has been waging the last 66 years, under cover of Europe and the US, is against a nation, Palestine, that they seek to wipe off the map.

Journal: Khuza’a, the farm life

31st March | Rina Andolini | Khuza’a, Occupied Palestine

This is what conversations in Gaza consist of: I asked, “When they are shooting, what’s the best thing to do?”

“Get down on the ground,” he answered, “and move away quick as you can.”

It was a stupid question; I knew the answer. I guess I was hoping for a response that would ensure 100% safety for the farmers, and for myself, but of course no such answer exists.

I am not an expert bullet dodger, if such a thing even exists. If you are a farmer here in Gaza, it is a good idea to become one, as the Israeli military is always shooting. Yet how do you actually avoid bullets? The truth is, you cannot. You just hope for the best.

On Saturday, March 28, the Israeli forces shot a lot at the farmers in Khuza’a. No one could know exactly where the shots were coming from; no one knew where they were aiming, or whether anyone would be hit. Thankfully, that day no one was hurt.

The Israeli military jeeps are clear to be seen, but many soldiers were also hiding in the watch towers and shooting from there. Israeli forces fired at least 25 to 30 shots in a span of two hours.

When the first shots were fired, the farmers moved back as much as possible; as soon the shooting stopped, they returned to the lands where they were working. Then you get used to it, and continue. Where in the world do you have to get used to being shot at while farming?

There were three of us: Miguel, Valeria, and myself. It is not enough. In twenty days, full farming season will begin in Gaza, and we will need to go out every morning. The farmers need more than just three internationals to document the violations committed by the Israeli occupation military at the borders.

What the farmers really need is to be able to work on their land in peace, without feeling threatened. They need to be able to work without risking losing their lives.

We were 50 meters away from the border when they shot at us that morning. The Israeli military can clearly see everything that is happening – farming, and nothing more. So why do they still shoot?

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Gazan farmer going about his work in Khuza’a – photo by Rina Andolini

Does the man in this photo look like he is doing anything but farming?

The following morning, the farmers will return.

In Gaza the farmers irrigate the land with their blood

18th March 2015 | Valeria Cortés | Khuza’a, Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Tilling the land in Gaza is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The Zionist Occupation Forces fire on the peasants and their families while they sow or harvest their own land near the infamous Zionist fence which surrounds Gaza. They also burn their fields and routinely ravage their crops with bulldozers, leaving hundreds of families ruined and preventing the Gaza Strip from developing it’s already devastated economy or achieving a minimum of food sovereignty.

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Last Sunday a group of peasants from Khuza’a, a village located in the South of the Gaza Strip, called us to ask for our presence as deterrent witnesses during their journey to sow their fields. The days before they had been harassed by Israeli soldiers, who fired their rifles and shot tear gas grenades from where they crouched inside their tanks and military turrets towards the peasants who were just trying to work their land under a hail of Zionist bullets.

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Azzam taking a rest after a morning of hard work.

Azzam, a humble 40 years old farmer, spoke to us of the tragedy of his life: “During the last attack Israel bombed my home and destroyed it completely; now I’m living with my family in a plastic tent.” He also explained us the shameful differences between a Palestinian farmer and farmer from the Israeli occupation. “They kill us, they shoot the few old tractors that we have, they burn our crops and bomb our homes, while their farmers work escorted by a whole army, one of the most powerful armies in the world.”

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We finish our task and have a coffee sitting on the ground whose furrows house the seeds sown at the risk of Palestinian farmers’ lives: seeds of wheat, watermelon, peanut, seeds that may not even have the chance to germinate. Sitting now quietly on the scorched land, on the occupied land, land irrigated with Palestinian blood – too much blood – Azzam fixes his eyes beyond that disgraceful fence. He looks beyond the military vehicles, beyond the armed towers, armed with guns that can fire at the a push of a button from Tel Aviv; there we can see the stolen green fields of Palestine, a land deprived of it’s real name and owner, that place that is now known by the infamous name of Israel.