Category: Gaza - Page 22 - International Solidarity Movement

The Israeli offensive on Gaza caused full or partial damages to 75 kindergartens and day-care centers

21st September 2013 | Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center in Palestine | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

The Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center field teams have documented full or partial damages to 75 kindergartens and day-care centers caused during the 51 day Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip this summer.

DWRC’s field workers conducted field visits to all the kindergartens that suffered damages and collected information through filling questionnaires and affidavits from kindergarten owners in the five Gaza governorates, with a particular focus on eastern areas, where these damages were concentrated.

Among the 75 kindergartens and day-care centers that suffered damages, 12 were fully destroyed and 63 partially damaged by shelling and bombing. They are distributed as follows: 10 are located in the North Gaza governorate, 17 in the Gaza governorate, 17 in the Middle Gaza governorate, 21 in Khan Younis governorate, and 10 in Rafah governorate. These kindergartens employ 629 female workers, including educators, administrators and cleaning agents, and they used to care for and provide pre-school education to 12,671 children.

Photo by Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center in Palestine

The owners of some of the kindergartens have undertaken repairs at their own cost in order to reopen them and others have relocated to alternative premises near their original location, while a third group has been unable to open their kindergartens or day-care centers to this day.

The Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center strongly condemns Israeli attacks on educational institutions and calls upon the international community to hold the Israeli occupying power accountable for crimes committed during its latest military offensive against the Gaza Strip. The Center stresses the need ensure special care and protection for children under all circumstances as stipulated in international human rights law and humanitarian law, and declarations on the rights of the child. DWRC also emphasizes the urgent need to rehabilitate damaged kindergartens and day-care centers, and compensate their owners as soon as possible due to the society’s need for their essential services.

Early childhood education in the occupied Palestinian territory is provided by private sector or NGOs, and receives no subsidies from the government. 99% of the workers in the sector are women, most of them paid well below the monthly minimum wage of 1450 NIS. It is a sector that has already suffered greatly from high poverty and unemployment rates, particularly in the Gaza Strip, since it largely depends on the capacity of families to pay for its services.

For further information or to access detailed data about the damages incurred by kindergartens and day-care centers, please contact us at extr@dwrc.org

Final journal from Gaza

17th September | Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

This is what seems to be the last thing I will write from Gaza. Not that there is nothing more to tell, there lies a new story under every stone, but because I will soon leave this small coastal strip where there is so much to be found.

Suffering, deprivation, death, dismemberment, despair, shattered homes, and lives without a future. But also so much love, so much kindness, smiling faces and playing children with catching laughter. And this curiosity and immediate acceptance of me as a stranger, so very distant from my soon-to-be home in Europe.

This will be my thanks and goodbye. A sincere thank you for giving me the opportunity to publish my thoughts, reflections, and observations. A humble thanks to all of you who wanted to read them. And a little special thanks to those of you who have contacted me because of my stories and articles; it has sometimes made me slightly embarrassed, but also made me, secretly, of course – proud.

It has driven me to continue to write, and given me this urge to improve, to make the necessary contacts in order to write another story to keep describing Gaza for those who want to read it.

There is so much more to write and report on. There are already many orphans in Gaza, and the recent war has ripped away another 1,500 children their parents. Not all of these children will be placed in an orphanage, most will probably be taken in by relatives. This is just one of hundreds of stories that will remain on my mind, after I have left Gaza.

There is a farming season approaching, but many farmers have had their houses and fields destroyed. Tanks and bulldozers have already penetrated into the Gaza Strip in violation of the ceasefire. Fishermen have been shot at several times, six have been arrested, and a boat has been seized. This also in violation of the ceasefire.

There are 100 shelters that have been erected, donated by the United Arab Emirates. This is a good start, but not even ten thousand such barracks would be enough, and soon winter and rain will arrive.

There is so much still to write about.

There are not many days left until I shall try to leave, and I will spend my time finishing projects, not beginning new ones. Al-Mazan, an organization working closely with the UN and HRW, has asked for copies of my photographic evidence of war crimes, my role in the Ark-project is over. After a lot of struggling, we have finally started to move forward on the issue of our presence among the fishermen on a far more regular basis. This is a project I will not see completed before I leave. It came to a temporary stop when the war began, and it has tentatively started to continue once again.

It stings a little in me that I cannot be on that journey, and it is pointless trying to hide that. If I did not have to go home, that project alone would be worth staying another year for. Instead, I will focus on cleaning out my apartment, trying to get an afternoon for myself and Moby Dick at a beach cafe, trying to get out for a last night with the fishermen at the sea, to say goodbye to the friends I have found and to thank them for everything, and complete this text, the last one.

Gaza beach massacre commemorated by child survivors

10th September | Joe Catron | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

On Sunday evening, as the sun slipped behind the Mediterranean Sea, members of the Bakr family, a sprawling clan of fishermen in Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp, gathered with hundreds of supporters on the beach next to the Gaza seaport.

Young relatives of four children killed by Israeli shelling while playing football on a beach in July play their game that was violently cut short, 7 September (Joe Catron)

Their assembly commemorated the lives of nine-year-old Ismail Muhammad Subhi Bakr, ten-year-old Ahed Atef Ahed Bakr, ten-year-old Zakariya Ahed Subhi Bakr and eleven-year-old Muhammad Ramez Ezzat Bakr.

All four were killed in Israeli strikes as they played football on the beach on 16 July. The first blast killed Ismail as he ran to retrieve a ball. Ahed, Zakariya and Muhammad died in the second explosion.

The Israeli munitions that ended their lives struck the beach directly behind a row of hotels which, in mid-July, housed many of the foreign reporters then present in Gaza.

Along with statements by members of their family and the painting of colorful murals at the site of the boys’ killings, the event also included a football match, intended to complete the one interrupted by the lethal blasts almost two months ago.

“It was never finished,” Bayan al-Zumaili of the Safadi Group, the youth organization that worked with the Bakr family to organize the event, told The Electronic Intifada. “So we decided to complete it with the survivors of the massacre.”

Al-Zumaili, a physician who graduated from the Islamic University of Gaza’s medical school two months ago, volunteered in the surgical department at al-Shifa hospital during Israel’s 51-day offensive against the Gaza Strip, which ended in an indefinite ceasefire on 26 August.

Witnessed by journalists

By 25 August, Israeli attacks had killed at least at least 2,168 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including 521 children, according to Gaza’s al-Mezan Center for Human Rights.

The number of child fatalities has risen to at least 523 with the deaths of Ziyad al-Reefi, age nine, on 1 September, and Rahfat Abu Jame, age five, on Tuesday. Both died of injuries from Israeli attacks.

The killings of the Bakr boys in July drew broad attention not only because a single incident caused the deaths of four young relatives — a scenario repeated numerous times throughout the onslaught — but also because it took place so near to where so many journalists were staying.

Eyewitness accounts of the massacre by journalists like Sara Hussein of AFP, Peter Beaumont of The Guardian, Tyler Hicks of The New York Times, and William Booth of The Washington Post reached much larger audiences than first-hand reports of similar mass killings elsewhere.

On twitter

NBC briefly pulled from the Gaza Strip its correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin, who tweeted: “Minutes before they were killed by our hotel, I was kicking a ball with them.” NBC’s removal of their star foreign correspondent was attributed by many to his blunt coverage of Palestinian deaths on social media and was widely criticized by other journalists.

While many reporters witnessed the killings, some also helped evacuated three survivors from the beach and gave them first aid inside al-Deira hotel.

“They targeted us knowing that we were children, playing a game of football on the beach,” one survivor of Israel’s missile strikes, eleven-year-old Motasem Bakr, said Sunday. “The [armed] resistance was on the frontiers fighting them, not here playing football.”

“An Israeli officer did not like the idea of children playing,” he added.

In place of the martyrs

According to Defence for Children International – Palestine, Ismail, Ahed, Zakariya and Muhammad were pronounced dead upon their arrival at al-Shifa hospital.

“Israeli forces continue to target and kill children and civilians on a daily basis, making Israeli military statements claiming that these deaths are tragic mistakes simply meaningless,” DCI-Palestine executive director Rifat Kassis said in a statement the next day. “The death toll among children now stands at its highest point in five years.”

Along with two other survivors of the attack, Motasem joined three other boys from the Bakr family and six others from the devastated Shujaiya neighborhood, on the eastern edge of Gaza City, to complete the football match they had never finished on 16 July.

“In the place of the martyrs who couldn’t attend, we brought survivors of the Shujaiya massacre to complete the match for them,” al-Zumaili said.

Dozens of Palestinians died over the course of days of Israeli shelling, airstrikes,and gunfire in Shujaiya in mid-July. The bombings reduced much of the neighborhood to rubble.

Since the 26 August ceasefire, hard-hit areas like Shujaiya, Beit Hanoun and Khuzaa have at times resembled army encampments; their streets thick with tents erected by grieving families to host mourners and those offering their condolences.

As families mourn their losses, and injured Palestinians succumb to their injuries, Gaza’s ongoing process of collective grieving will also continue, sometimes in the somber reflection of mourning tents, sometimes in the simple joy of an evening football match on the beach.

The blockade remains

8th September | Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

More than a week has passed since the ceasefire started and yet no significant easing of the blockade has been seen. Drones are still circulating over the rooftops, maybe carrying deadly cargo. Fishermen have been shot at in the north and south, two fishermen have been arrested and had their boat seized. Tanks and bulldozers have rolled in a good way over the border east of Rafah and destroyed farmland. In the West Bank a 4,000 square kilometer of Palestinian privately owned land has been annexed by the Israeli state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he is considering not sending a delegation to the peace talks in Cairo three weeks from now, and that Hamas is not going to get through any of their demands, demands that all are parts of the Oslo Accords and subsequent agreements, approved by previous Israeli governments. It does not look good for the future.

In Gaza people try to return to everyday life. Those whose houses were not completely demolished, clean shattered glass, broken furniture, concrete, plaster, and war dust. Bombs that did not detonate are excavated and taken away for destruction. Repairs are carried out on houses of those who have access to building materials.

In the wind an air of freedom can be felt, an end to the blockade, a politically united Palestine. Orange banners, the 2010 nominee for the Nobel Prize Mustafa Barghoutis’ colour, have begun to be seen in contrast to the resistance movements green, black, red and Fatah´s yellow. His party PNI, Palestinian National Initiative, which is mostly a democratic coalition open to secular leftist movements and individuals, women’s organizations and civil society organizations. The PNI is based on non-violent resistance and social justice, which sees both the two-state solution based on ‘67 borders and a one-state solution where everyone has equal rights, as avenues to peace, justice and an end to the occupation. It is a hopeful element in an otherwise polarized debate with military overtones on both sides of the border.

There is a lot at stake in Cairo three weeks from now. However if Israel continue to place obstacles in front of a political merger between Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the dreams and hopes will be dashed like the thousands of residential buildings, hospitals, and civilian infrastructure already crushed here in Gaza. It is highly probable that the war rumble will once again echo.

Military operations have already been deployed against fishermen and farmers.

Resistance movements are likely to gain in popularity at the expense of more nuanced movements, the extreme nationalist right in Israel will smell blood and lick their lips, the outside world…how will the outside world react? Will Europe finally have had enough of an Israel that constantly puts itself above international laws, which routinely violate UN conventions? Will the otherwise loyal United States continue to stand at its client side? Will the BDS movement at last gain an overwhelming impact among the world’s citizens? Will Israel continue to isolate itself, hide in the shadow of its wall?

There is much at stake in Cairo three weeks from now. A new chapter may be written in the history books. But from what we have seen during the current ceasefire, and of Netanyahu’s statements, it does not look good.

A call from Gaza: Make Israel Accountable for its Crimes in Gaza – Intensify BDS!

5th September | BDS Movement | Occupied Palestine

From the ruins of our towns and cities in Gaza, we send our heartfelt appreciation to all those who stood with us and mobilized during the latest Israeli massacre. In the occupied West Bank, Israel has embarked on one of its largest illegal land grabs in decades by confiscating another 1000 acres of Palestinian land to expand its illegal colonies. Now, our battle to hold Israel accountable for its fresh war crimes and crimes against humanity has begun. The outcome of this battle to end Israeli impunity will determine whether Israel’s latest assault will be yet another stage in Israel’s “incremental genocide” of Palestinians or the turning point that will bring an end to Israel’s status as an entity above the law—the world’s dangerous pariah. The outcome of this battle depends on you.

Two months after its 2008-09 massacre in Gaza, Israel’s prize was an upgrade in trade relations with the European Union. By 2012, western powers in cooperation with the UN Secretary General had effectively prevented all investigation by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC) into the war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel committed during the attack.

During the most recent massacre, on August 2nd 2014, three days after the occupation forces bombed the designated UN humanitarian shelter in Jabalya refugee camp, killing 20 civilians and wounding at least 150 people as they slept, the US Congress approved $225 million in additional military aid to Israel. The following day, the occupation forces bombed another UN shelter in Rafah killing ten civilians and injuring dozens. Also during the massacre, Germany sold Israel an attack submarine with nuclear capability, and Britain refused to freeze its arms sales to Israel. These and other forms of criminal complicity from world governments and official bodies pave the way for Israel’s ongoing genocidal attacks. It is up to people of conscience and all those who seek peace with justice worldwide to make sure this complicity ends now.

We urge you to stand with the Palestinian people in its entirety and to demand that Israel be held accountable for the war crimes and crimes against humanity it has committed and continues to commit against the Palestinian people everywhere. We urge you to intensify boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns to further isolate Israel economically, militarily, academically and culturally.

Intensify BDS against Israel in all fields, including by taking the following actions:

1. Working to have arrest warrants issued against Israeli war criminals and for them to be tried before your courts.

2. Pressuring governments to impose a comprehensive military embargo on Israel.

3. Pressuring governments to suspend all free trade and bilateral agreements with Israel until it complies with international law.

4. Building effective direct action against Israel and Israeli companies, such as the inspiring Block the Boat actions that prevented Israeli ships from unloading in California and Seattle, and the occupations of Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems’ factories in the UK and Australia.

5. Working within trade unions to raise awareness about Israel’s regime of oppression and engaging in effective BDS measures such as stopping handling of Israeli goods, divesting trade union funds from Israel and complicit companies, and boycotting complicit Israel trade unions. The trade union movement has a proud history of successful campaigning against apartheid in South Africa, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions has joined Palestinian trade unions in calling for trade union action to end Israel’s impunity.

6. Holding to account those corporations and retailers that support and profit from Israel’s regime of occupation, colonialism and apartheid, including by boycotting their products and taking creative and direct action. The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) has suggested a list of corporate criminals to target: http://www.bdsmovement.net/make-an-impact.

The majority of the world’s people are waking up to the reality of Israel’s rogue regime of oppression and racism. For the rest of what is supposed to be the International year of solidarity with the Palestinian people, demand an end to Israel’s criminal impunity. Stand with Gaza, and act for freedom, justice and peace in Palestine.

Issued the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) and the following Gaza organizations/unions:

Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions
University Teachers’ Association in Palestine
Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (Umbrella for 133 orgs)
Medical Democratic Assembly
General Union of Palestine Workers
General Union for Health Services Workers
General Union for Public Services Workers
General Union for Petrochemical and Gas Workers
General Union for Agricultural Workers
Union of Women’s Work Committees
Pal-Cinema (Palestine Cinema Forum)
Herak Youth Movement
Union of Women’s Struggle Committees
Union of Synergies—Women Unit
Union of Palestinian Women Committees
Women’s Studies Society
Working Woman’s Society
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel
Gaza BDS Working Group
One Democratic State Group