Category: In the Media - Page 43 - International Solidarity Movement

On the sixth day of Israeli attacks on Gaza

By Rosa Schiano

23 June 2012 | il Blog di Olivia, Gaza

The sixth day of Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Today we have arrived at 16 deaths, including a child of 5 and a half years, and over 60 injured individuals. This morning in Khan Younis of the southern Gaza Strip an Israeli tank fired an artillery shell and killed a child of 5 and a half years, and wounding his father and 3 other people. I went to the morgue of the hospital and I saw the lifeless body of a child.

Ali Al Moutaz Shawat was 5 and a half years old.

5 and a half year old Ali Moutaz al Shawaf was killed by an Israeli shell – click to see more photos

Ali’s father was in the operating room. I went to visit other people injured in this attack, a number of whom were hospitalized at the European Hospital in Khan Younis.

Msabah Zaki, 53, was wounded in the shoulder. I met him at his home. Zaki began to tell me what happened.

Young people and families usually gather in the location that was attacked by the Israeli tank on June 23. There is a soccer field where young people have a league, there are ping pong tables, and a television to watch the game on. Today there was supposed to be a football match between some young groups. Zaki worked there and arrived early in the morning to clean and prepare everything. Some friends joined him to help. Two men with two kids asked him to open the room so they could play ping pong. Suddenly, at about 10:15 a.m., Zaki heard a huge explosion from the direction of the ping pong room.

“I flew a few yards away,” says Zaki. There were no warning shots before the attack. The situation was calm, quiet.

In the hospital I met the 2 men who entered the ping pong room, Omar Tabash, 28, and Yosif Abu Tair, 24.

Omar was wounded in the arms and in his right leg. He says that he went to play ping pong, and brought his son Ayoub, a month and a half old. His friend Moutaz Shawat joined them with his 5 year old son Ali.

“Ali was speaking on the phone with his mom,” says Omar. Young Ali was saying into the phone, “mom, I want to see you,” to which his mother replied, “now I am at work, I will see you later at home.”

Ali’s father wanted to go home to change into sports clothing. He went outside and yelled suddenly as an explosion went off.

Moutaz called for Omar to come, but Omar, wounded, could not. Omar called some friends and the ambulance. “Ali died while hugging his father,” says Omar.

On the same day, June 23, 2012, the Israeli Air Force attacked several areas in the Gaza Strip. A first attack, at about 11:00 a.m., occurred east of Shjayah, in the center of Gaza City. The bomb did not explode.

The Israeli Air Force then attacked the area of Jabalia in northern Gaza. One person was killed. He was an activist with the Popular Resistance Committee. His name is Khalid al-Burei and he was 25 years old.

On Saturday morning, Israel also carried out 3 air strikes against Hamas security sites in which at least 17 people were injured.

In the afternoon, one was killed and 9 others injured in an Israeli attack on the center of Gaza City, in the Nasser arrea which is very crowded during the day.

Parents and friends of Osama Ali outside the morgue – click to see more photos

I visited Shifa hospital after the attack. The civilian who was killed is Osama Ali who was 34. He was crossing the road at the time of the attack.

In the same attack, 9 civilians were wounded. Among them:

Hassan Oda, 24, who was in front of his home at the time of the attack.

Imad Abu Nahl, 29, who was driving at the time of the attack.

Hassan Yassin, 28, who was crossing the street at the time of the attack.

Yesterday, on Friday, June 22, a boy was killed in an Israeli attack east of Al-Bureij camp. Qassem Abdullah Ahmed was 24 years old. Two civilians were injured and were transported to the ‘Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

On the evening of Friday, June 22, an Israeli strike in northern Gaza killed Jamal Abu Humam Qadoos, 20.

On that same day, the Israeli Air Force conducted several more raids in different areas of the Gaza Strip. In the night between Friday and Saturday, Gaza City was shaken by a tremendous explosion. A Hamas military complex near Saraya, in the center of Gaza City was struck.

I visited the site during the night immediately after the attack. Many homes were damaged. Among the wounded, Hamas security members and 4 civilians.

Gaza City that night could not sleep. I lay awake in a Palestinian family’s house in the affected area. We were neighbors, telling each other about the fright. Sharing our fear brought us together in that dark night, punctuated only by the sound of sirens and lit only by the fire that remained alive after the bombing.

16 Palestinians killed and over 60 injured since Israel’s military offensive on Gaza, which began Monday, June 18, 2012.

Some people think that the situation will worsen in the coming days. The hope is that the horror of this massacre stops.

Remembering Mamoun, killed by an Israeli missile as he played football

By Rami Almeghari

22 June 2012 | The Electronic Intifada, Gaza City

“I can never forget his image with blood all over his little body and both his legs badly injured,” Umm Mamoun Hassouna told The Electronic Intifada as she sat at a relative’s house in Gaza City. “I am a preacher [for women] at a local mosque and used to preach against harming innocent Israeli children, women or the elderly, and even cutting down a tree,” she said.

Muhammed al-Dam grieves over the body of his son, Mamoun, who was killed on Wednesday from an Israeli airstrike. (Ashraf Amra / APA images)

“After I have seen my son killed by an Israeli warplane in front of my eyes, I wonder what my only son did against Israel [for them to] kill him,” Umm Mamoun added.

Thirteen-year-old Mamoun Zuhdi al-Dam was killed on Wednesday, 20 June, during an Israeli attack on Gaza amid exchange of fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian resistance factions that left eight Palestinians dead.

At approximately 3pm, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at members of a Palestinian family who were having a picnic behind the campus of the University College of Applied Sciences in the southern Gaza City neighborhood of Tal al-Hawa. As a result, Mamoun al-Dam was killed.

His blind father, Muhammad Zuhdi al-Dam, 67, was wounded by shrapnel to the head and the neck. Three other children who were in a nearby field were also wounded, according to the weekly report from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

He made tea for his parents

“One month ago, I inherited a small piece of land — about 220 square meters — from my family, and we were all so happy to own that land as my husband is an elderly retired man,” Umm Mamoun said. “Since we inherited that land, Mamoun used to go to it often to enjoy some time outdoors.”

On the day he was killed, his mother said, Mamoun went to the piece of land in the Zaytoun neighborhood, just near the Ali Bin Abi Talib mosque, at about 9am. “I received a phone call from him later on to inform me that the situation was tense and that Israeli warplanes were buzzing overhead,” she said. “His father and I were scared for him and we went to join him.”

Mamoun, his mother said, used to read the Quran, and he led noon prayers that day on the family’s plot of land. The boy also prepared some tea for his parents, and then laid down to listen to news on his mobile phone.

“As he was listening to the newscast that moment, he told us that an Israeli warplane had fired a missile somewhere else,” she added.

Killed as he played football

“Then, Mamoun went to play with a football just close to us on the same land,” his mother recalled, surrounded by mourners. “Suddenly, we heard a loud explosion and pillars of smoke covered the place. I heard Mamoun screaming and saw him stained with blood, and his legs were badly injured. By then my relatives, who are our neighbors, came over to help us as his father was slightly injured too.”

“Mamoun was everything for me — a son, a brother, a sister and everything in my life,” his grief-stricken mother said, “I am the second wife of his father, and God had given me Mamoun to fill in my life.”

In tears, Umm Mamoun spoke of how her son would tell her, “I love you so much, mom. You are my dearest, I love you, I love you.”

“He used to fill my moments with joy”

Muhammad, Mamoun’s father and a retired trader, sat at a condolence ceremony in the Asqoula neighborhood of Gaza City, with his left hand bandaged due to his injuries from the same missile strike that killed his son.

As relatives and friends came to offer condolences, al-Dam lamented, “I do not know what to say, except may God take revenge on those who killed my son Mamoun.”

Al-Dam explained that his son used to look after him due to his lack of sight. “Mamoun, may he rest in peace, used to be very reliable, though he was only a child. He used to take me to the mosque for prayer, he used to bring whatever I need from nearby grocery stores, he used to fill my moments with joy.”

No resistance, no shooting

Al-Dam told The Electronic Intifada that the moment his son Mamoun was hit by the Israeli missile, there was no sign of Palestinian shooting or rocket fire in the area.

“The area where our new piece of land is located is far away from the Israeli border line and it is populated as well,” he said.

Mamoun’s maternal aunts on his mother’s side, Umm Mahmoud and Umm Ahmad Hassouna, recalled how cheerful, humorous and polite Mamoun was.

“One day I was very sad and visited my sister Umm Mamoun to feel better. Mamoun came over to me and said, aunty, I will tell you 15 jokes so that you will smile,” Umm Ahmad said as a little smile broke the grief on her face.

Mamoun’s niece, seven-year-old Abeer Zuhdi al-Dam, wanted to share her feelings too.

“We used to play together often. Sometimes he used to show me some pictures on his own computer, and we used to play many games including hide and seek. We hate Israel for killing him, we hate Israel for killing him,” she said.

“Like my son”

Mamoun’s elder brother, Zuhdi al-Dam, 42, received condolences alongside his father. “This is something that our faith obliges us to tolerate and take for granted, but the question is, why does Israel target such little children? Why?” Zuhdi al-Dam said. “Mamoun was like my son as the age difference between us is thirty years.”

“Why do those alleged world leaders assemble at the so-called United Nations Security Council? Rather, it is the No-Security Council,” Mamoun’s father remarked.

“When an Israeli is hurt, those alleged leaders rush to condemn or call for action, while our own children are being killed and no one even moves.”

Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.

20 Palestinian detained children started a hunger strike in Hasharon prison

13 June 2012 | Palestinian Information Center, Gaza

Twenty Palestinian children, detained in Hasharon prison, launched on Tuesday June 12, an open hunger strike protesting the harsh prison conditions and the prison administration’s neglect of their demands.

A 17-years-old child Ahmed Lafi, who was one of the strikers, told the Ministry of the prisoners in Gaza that 20 detained children started an open hunger strike to protest the bad and deteriorating living conditions in the prison, where they are not allowed to visit each other and are deprived from their study.

He also revealed that “the prison administration continues to torture and humiliate the child prisoners even after the agreement signed between the strike leadership committee and the prison administration.”

Ahmed Lafi also stressed that the prison administration holds in solitary confinement every prisoner trying to demand his rights amid the bad conditions he witnesses in the jails.

He pointed out that Israeli intelligence use the most extreme torture methods to extract confessions from the children in violation of all international conventions and rights of children.

There are 190 Palestinian children under the age of 18 in occupation jails in very harsh conditions. These minors are treated the same way as adult prisoners; insufficient food, search raids on their rooms by intelligence officers, provocations, medical neglect and denial of education.

Issa Amro, coordinator of Youth Against Settlements, arrested at border on way to speaking tour

15 June 2012 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

Issa Amro, Coordinator of Youth Against Settlements, was stopped last night by Israeli authorities at the Allenby Bridge. He was arrested and taken to Hebron police station, where he was interrogated for hours on suspicion of involvement in organizing the women’s action that took place in Hebron last Wednesday, at the segregated Shuhada Street.

Amro, was traveling to Italy for a speaking tour organized by the Italian Peace Association to meet Members of the Italian Parliament and Senate, and municipality representatives from different Italian cities.

Issa Amro, a prominent popular resistance activist in Hebron, was arrested several times in the past by the Israeli army for participating in activities to protest the occupation practices in Hebron. Throughout the past few years, Youth Against Settlements has been leading the global campaign to re-open Shuhada street, Hebron’s main commerce center that was closed to Palestinian movement in 1994.

Last Wednesday, approximately 15 Israeli and International women dressed in Palestinian traditional clothing walked through Shuhada Street in silence protesting the policy of preventing Palestinian women from accessing the street. The women were shortly stopped by Israeli soldiers and attacked by both soldiers and settlers. Five activists and one journalist were arrested during the action. Later that day, a Palestinian man was also arrested on suspicion of “conspiracy” related to the same action. All seven were released throughout the next 24 hours, three on condition of a 90 day restraining order from area A and the Hebron area.

Palestine: Finding the Will to Resist

By Abir Kopty

4 June 2012 | Al-Akhbar English

Palestinian fans hold the sign "Freedom for prisoners" during the opening match of the "Palestine Championship" between the local national team and Vietnam in the West Bank town of Al-Ram, between Ramallah and Jerusalem, on 14 May 2012 (photo: AFP - AHMAD GHARABLI)

During the latest wave of hunger strikes, many Palestinian movements emerged in support of the strikers’ struggle. It is clear that there is persistent action on the ground, but it is still limited to the active circles connected to the families of the prisoners.

At the peak of the strike, when it was crucial to have massive support, many voiced frustration with continued Palestinian apathy, especially when in Scotland and Spain, for instance, thousands marched for the prisoners. Meanwhile, in Ramallah and Nablus, only hundreds bothered to demonstrate.

Despite the long history of Palestinian resistance, current popular action remains limited to small-scale participation. One has to ask, what went wrong?

Before discussing the major factor influencing every single aspect of Palestinians’ lives – the Israeli occupation, one needs to look at the process Palestinians went through since the Oslo Accord of 1993 and the subsequent creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) that contributed in many ways to Palestinian apathy. Although those who signed Oslo thought they were heading in a positive direction, it is clear today that what they received was a lie. In lieu of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state, Oslo has given the PA glorified local governance over disconnected city centers. In hindsight, Oslo has been a disaster for the Palestinian cause. The agreement gave much to the Israelis – the colonizers – with minimum concessions, while giving little to the Palestinians – the colonized – while extracting maximum concessions.

One cannot examine the absence of a massive movement on the ground without also taking into consideration the context of separation and division. At present, Palestinians are a separated and divided people. Half of the Palestinian population live in the diaspora and exile, the vast majority in squalid refugee camps in neighboring countries, denied their right of return to their homes and villages. Gaza, ruled by Hamas, and the West Bank, ruled by Fatah, are separated by the occupation. Within the occupied West Bank, divisions also exist. Jerusalem is isolated from the surrounding Palestinian population due to Israeli settlement expansion and occupation. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship were also ignored by Oslo and live in continued isolation from their brethren while suffering daily discrimination in the Jewish “democracy.” Accomplishing the physical unity of Palestinians as a nation to fight apartheid is, thus, difficult. And it’s difficult not only as a result of Israeli policies, and internal division, but also due to Arab countries that host Palestinian refugees, but do not allow them to resist from their borders.

Oslo’s implications pertain not only to geography, demography and land. There were also implications for Palestinian civil society in the occupied territories. Civil society began to be transformed from being part of the liberation movement to “development.” The phenomenon of “NGOzation” has infiltrated Palestinian society. International funders too often dictate to Palestinians their agendas and priorities, killing the spirit of the freedom fighters and resistance in the process.

The Oslo agenda was designed in a way that those trapped in it would have little or no interest in challenging it. Oslo has created the illusion of a “state,” a state for people with no rights and no sovereignty over their borders, resources or fate.

Any decision to dissolve the PA or change its mandate, especially to put an end to the security coordination with Israel, should be made outside the framework of the Palestinian leaders who have vested interests and are terrified at the prospect of losing them. The sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people as a whole, the PLO, is the body to make such decisions. The PNC (Palestinian National Council), the legislative body of the PLO, had its last meeting in 1996, where its members were appointed, not elected as they should have been according to the PLO constitution. Since Oslo, the PLO has lost its mandate and rebellious identity to the “quasi-state” of the PA. We should not expect that the same heads of the PLO, who also run the PA, would want to voluntarily surrender their power. The PLO is occupied by the same faces who have sat there for decades, stifling all sense of change, snuffing out the resistance element of the Palestinian cause. We should not expect such an ossified institution to bring a new vision.

Apathy, therefore, became a natural result of the frustration at the unchanged leadership. This leadership lacks any strategy or comprehensive vision, except the ultimate soap opera of “negotiations.” Furthermore, the security coordination with Israel is designed to ensure Israelis’ “security” not Palestinians’. In many cases, it also impedes the people from challenging the occupation with its security forces that sometimes block protesters from reaching checkpoints and have no tolerance toward anyone who dares to criticize Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas). It creates confusion; where do we start our fight? Against the PA leaders who failed the people but still hold on to power? Or the Israeli occupation forces that have trapped the PA in such a role and still control Palestinian lives? In order to fight, you need to set your target with clear eyes.

That is relevant to the West Bank under the PA and Fatah, however, Palestinians under Hamas in Gaza face similar challenges, and a regime even more oppressive toward critical voices that might challenge its rule.

Some also have concerns based on their experiences of the second intifada, where an unorganized armed resistance led to armed militias and security chaos. Many Palestinians are afraid an uprising will spiral out of control, and the same chaos will return.

Yet, the main reason for the Palestinian apathy and fatigue remains the occupation and colonization that has not relented since the creation of the PA in Oslo.

Israel attempts to crush peaceful resistance with no regard for Palestinian lives. And that, naturally, deters people from participation. When people go to participate in a protest against the occupation, they take the risk of getting shot, beaten, or arrested. Two-hundred and seventy-five Palestinian martyrs have been killed by the Israeli army since 2000 in popular resistance rallies. (Information taken from the Popular Resistance Coordination Committee).

Arrest means a verdict in a military court. Imprisonment is a near certainty and is far more of a persecution than prosecution. The system is heavily stacked against a fair day in court for Palestinians. According to Haaretz, in 2010, 99.74 percent of the trials of Palestinians in Israeli military courts ended in convictions. Arrest and then charges means a “security file” will accompany any attempt to travel, whether for leisure or studies. It kills the already near-impossible chance of getting a permit, either for work in Israel or to visit family or friends. Arrest means one becomes a target – and in many cases one’s family does as well.

Palestinians have sacrificed much for their steadfastness and resistance, with tens of thousands killed, hundreds of thousands jailed, arrested or tortured, and many others losing their homes or lands or source of income. Their sacrifice is met with non-stop Israeli colonization, their resistance is met with brutal Israeli repression, and their screams met with international silence. Combined, it has made Palestinians question the worth of their sacrifice.

Israel has “architectured” the Oslo agreement to make the occupation more efficient. To Palestinians in city centers, the occupation has become slightly less direct. There, you will hardly feel the occupation, unless you have to go through checkpoints every day or you see the Israeli army raiding your neighborhood at night to arrest your neighbor. Many people abandoned the option of filing for a permit to enter “Israel” to visit friends or family or simply Palestine. Many people gave up the idea of traveling abroad because they would need permission from Israel and they would need to cross Israeli “border” points. Most Palestinians have a “security file” in Israel and, if not them, a family member surely does. People just continue to live their lives, adapting to the reality, with the Israeli occupation sapping their will to resist. They fear losing the little they have left if they challenge the status quo.

Understanding this complexity under which Palestinians live post-Oslo explains the current situation where the will to resist has been drained from the people of resistance. In order to break down Palestinian apathy and fatigue, one will have to break down the many reasons that led to it, starting with Oslo.

Abir Kopty is a Palestinian blogger. Follow her on Twitter @abirkopty.