Category: Reports

International Day of Solidarity in Gaza greeted with bullets in Beit Hanoun

1 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Live bullets were fired from snipers at an Erez control tower within a metre of demonstrators on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on Tuesday morning in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza. A German activist Vera Macht was injured as she stumbled while running for cover. The Local Initiative of Beit Hanoun organized the demonstration international mural and with extra attention focusing on the growing international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel for its ongoing human rights violations of the Palestinian people. The demonstration was held in the area where 6 farmers and rock collectors, including 2 children had been shot and injured over the previous 2 days, seeing an escalation of violence against civilians from the Israeli Occupation Forces.

It was actually the United Nations General Assembly who in 1977 called for this annual observance of 29th November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. It was on that day, in 1947, that the Assembly adopted the resolution on the partition of Palestine resolution 181, which began the horrific trend of violent land expropriation and expulsion of the Palestinian population. Over two thirds of Gazans are UN registered refugees from this period.

Tuesday morning 30 people, amongst them 5 internationals from the International Solidarity Movement as well as Mavi Marmara survivor Ken O’Keefe and Irish Activist Cormac O’Daly, gathered in Beit Hanoun at approximately 800m from Erez Crossing. Opposite the remains of the destroyed Agricultural College, which was bombed during the war on Gaza, the demonstrators put up a wall of slogans and international and Palestinian flags to express solidarity. All demonstrators held up letters forming the slogan “Boycott Israel boycott!”, before marching down towards the Erez Wall.

They were also protesting their right to their land, much of which is now lost or out of bounds by the Israeli imposed “buffer-zone.” The buffer-zone, extended to 300 metres wide in December 2009, stretches along the entire border fence on the frontier with Israel. According to a recent UN report the violence used to restrict Palestinians from accessing their land actually covers areas up to 1500m from the border fence, meaning that over 35% of Gaza’s most agricultural land is in a high risk area causing severe losses of food production and livelihoods.

As the demonstrators neared to within 100 metres of the wall, chanting and waving flags it was clear one of the watch towers was open, evidently monitoring. The barren waste land all around was a result of the forced neglect as they marched into a place that has been made out of bounds by the threat of Israel snipers and shelling. As a soldier shouted from the tower, the group decided to walk back towards the village center. At around 500 metres from the fence, IOF snipers opened fire at them, the first few shots at head height missing many of the people on the march by a metre or less. Afterwards, another ten shots were fired.

According to Local Initiative organiser Saber Al Za’anin the day highlights the responsibility of international civil society to exert pressure to end the violent siege and occupation of Palestinian lands: “It is vital that Internationals support the Palestinian cause and make the world understand the horrific occupation and attacks Palestinians live under day in day out. The international grass roots boycotts are saying no to Israeli violence and oppression and its time that the International governing community did the same to hold Israel to account for their crimes. We painted flags of countries from around the world on a mural and demonstrated. Now its time for the world to increase the power of their demonstrations, lobbying, festivals, legal work and boycotts to finally end the conflict.”

On the violence at the borders, demonstration participant Ken O’Keefe said: “When people are shot and killed for collecting rocks so they can be crushed and turned into powder and ultimately into cement, because cement is banned under the Israeli siege, you know the so-called “easing” of the siege is a farce. The siege must be smashed into oblivion, and the only people who will make that happen are people of conscience who are willing to act.”

Released on Wednesday was a report ‘Dashed Hopes, Continuation of the Gaza Blockade’ signed by over 21 international organizations including Amnesty, Oxfam, Save the Children, Christian Aid and Medical Aid for Palestinians. It calls for international action for Israel to unconditionally lift the blockade, stating that the devastation of Palestinian life under the Israeli blockade continues unabated.

63 years before the day of the demonstration, On 29 November, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted for Resolution 181 for the partition of Palestine into two states and envisaged a Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem. It was this plan that triggered the ongoing suffering for the Palestinians given the hugely unequal partition of the land.

According to Israeli Historian Ilan Pappe, “The injustice was as striking then as it appears now… the Jews, who owned less than six per cent of the total land area of Palestine and constituted no more than one third of the population, were handed more than half of its overall territory”

According to Pappe, from the beginning the major global institutions and power-brokers were pitted against them: “The Palestinians were at the mercy of an international organization [the United Nations] that appeared ready to ignore all the rules of international mediation, which its own charter endorsed…One does not have to be a great jurist or legal mind to predict how the international court would have ruled on forcing a solution on a country to which the majority of its people were vehemently opposed.”

Then after the resolution partition came the Nakba or ‘Catastrophe’ during which the nascent Israeli army forcibly annexed even more land. Israel controlled 78% of the land held for a prospective Israeli State, leaving behind the West Bank and Gaza. During these attacks which began in March 1948 and included massacres such as Deir Yassin village, close to 800,000 Palestinians were uprooted, 531 villages were destroyed, and eleven urban neighbourhoods emptied of their inhabitants. With the ‘slow motion ethnic cleaning’ that has ensued ever since, Israel has now settled over 60% of the 22% of historic Palestine and militarily occupies the rest. [1]

[1] Pappe, I. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), One World Publications, Oxford

Buffer zone attacks continue: three more workers shot

28 November 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Mokles Jawad Al Masri, 15

The northern border area of the Strip is for the second day under attack of IOF snipers. Yesterday three people were shot, including a 12 year old boy, leaving one man in a critical condition. Today three more people were injured by Israeli gunfire while working in the buffer zone, amongst them was yet again a child. Mokles Jawad Al Masri (15), Mamdoe Ajesh Alsoes (20) and Mohamed Khalil Zanin (21) were shot in Beit Hanoun, north Gaza.

15 year old Mokles Jawad Al Masri was shot at 7 am this morning while collecting rubble at approximately 500 meters from Eretz Crossing. The boy was shot in the lower leg and is now hospitalized with a fractured bone in Beit Lahyia. According to the doctor, recovery will take one to two months.

“Because of the siege, there are not many options for my family to survive. We are 17 in our home and I bring food to the table by collecting and selling rubble. It’s dangerous and I only make 50 shekels a day, but it is the only thing I can do to help. I have one older brother who is in his final year at secondary school. I also go to school, but am only in grade nine; it is still easy, so I have more spare time than my older brother. He needs to concentrate in school to get good final results, so he can get a good job.”

Mokles regularly frequents the area around Eretz Crossing to go about his daily business as a scrap collector. Today he and a friend from the neighbors went out with a rented donkey cart when he was suddenly shot.

Mokles’ father used to work in Israel as a construction worker, but since 2003 the Israeli authorities have not allowed him to travel to Israel. Like 42 percent of the Gazan population, he is unemployed. According to OCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the number of people living in abject poverty in Gaza has risen from 100,000 to 300,000 in the last two years.

“Every day we live in fear when he goes out to work. But it’s all we have . . . All the time we’re afraid someone will come and alert us that Mokles has been arrested or shot by the soldiers,” his father exclaims in despair.

A couple of hours later, around 9:30 am, IOF attacked again and made the second victim of the day: Mamdoe Ajesh Alsoes, age 20, was shot by snipers. Mamdoe was hit in the knee and left the hospital later that day.

Mohamad Khalil Zanin, age 21

Mohamad Khalil Zanin, age 21, was working his land when he heard a shot and saw someone being carried away in the distance. Approximately one hour later, at 10:30 am, he himself was shot too in the leg. Yet again, the shot was fired without any warning. The bullet exited his leg, but has left Mohamed with a comminuted fracture of the bone, requiring surgery: six metal pins are placed in his leg. Recovery will require six months to a full year, according to the doctor.

The family Khalil Zanin has farming land that runs close to the border, where they grow oranges and olives.

“I must have been at 130 meters from the fence. It is close, but this is our land. We have 100 olive trees that need caring. I come here often: this week I have been here every single day. For sure, the soldiers know me from their cameras. I don’t know why they did this to me.

“I had just finished working and was making my way home when all of a sudden they shot me with an M16. I couldn’t walk, so my friend had to carry me to a car to get to the hospital.”

21 years old, Mohamed is the sole provider for his three young brothers and his parents. His father had a heart attack 13 years ago and is paralyzed on one side of his body.

“I don’t know what will happen now. No one is able to go to the land except for me. It’s the first time that they have fired at me. But who knows what will happen? I don’t want people to risk their lives there either.”

Today’s shootings bring the total amount of people injured while working in the buffer zone to 15 this month alone.

Gazan rubble collectors shot by Israeli forces

27 November 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Khalid Ashraf Abosita, age 22

Khalid Ashraf Abosita, 22 years, is in a critical condition after being shot by the Israeli Offensive Forces in Beit Hanoun, a city on the north-east edge of the Gaza Strip. He is currently hospitalized in Shifa hospital in Gaza City. At 6 pm, more than three hours after the assault, Khalid was trembling all over his body and was still losing a lot of blood. The bullet hit his left calf, fractured the bone and exited his leg again. According to the hospital doctor he was in an unstable state.

Equipped with a horse carriage, Khalid tries to make a living as a scrap collector. He married eight months ago and is trying to establish a family. However, living conditions in the border areas are tough: a recent Save the Children UK questionnaire reported that 73% of households near the buffer zone live below the poverty line, compared with 42% of the general population in Gaza. Like hundreds of men and youth, collecting stones, metal, pieces of concrete, and brick in the border areas–under the eye of Israeli snipers in the control towers–is the only way of making an income.

This afternoon Khalid was roughly 500 meters away from the fence when suddenly two shots were fired. The first one hit Khalid in the lower leg while the second bullet hit his horse in the neck. His friends who were collecting rubble in the neighborhood came to the rescue him and carried him close to Eretz border where an ambulance picked him up.

Khalid Ashraf Abosita's leg was fractured by the bullet

“Khalid has been working in this area for the past seven months. I’m sure the soldiers know him, but they shot him without warning”, says his elder brother.

When Khalid recovers from the assault, it is likely that he will have lost his source of income as the horse was left in an uncertain condition at the place of the attack.

Ma’an also reports that a 12 year old boy was mildly injured by a gun wound in the foot earlier today while working as a scrap collector in the northern border area. His identity remains unknown and the boy had already left the hospital when ISM volunteers arrived. This brings the total number of IOF buffer zone attacks to 12 within this month alone.

Israeli forces shoots Gazan fisherman at shore

27 November 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Ahmed Mahmoud Jarboh

At 12:30 pm, Ahmed Mahmoud Jarboh, aged 26, was shot in the back of the left knee by the Israeli Offensive Forces while fishing at the shore of Beit Lahya, in the north of the Gaza Strip. He is currently hospitalized in Kamal Udwan, in the neighboring town Jabalya, where his condition is being monitored.

Beit Lahya borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the 1949 Armistice Line with Israel to the north. The village’s economical resources are crippled by Israeli policies that restrict the fishing zone to three nautical miles and impose a 300 meter buffer zone on Palestinian land.

For over a year Ahmed has daily frequented the same area to fish with a small cast net. Today he and two of his colleagues were fishing from the shore at approximately 350 meters from the border fence. This incident again exemplifies a recent UN report conclusion that the danger zone does not halt at 300 meters: it can reach up to 1.5 kilometers.

“For over a year I have come here daily to fish. The soldiers in the watchtower see me every day: they know I am only a fisher! There was no reason for them to be suspicious as this is a normal, daily scene. Nothing special was going on.”

Even though the IOF soldiers should be familiar with Ahmed’s face, he was shot without warning:

“The only shot that was fired was the one that hit my leg”, he states.

When they heard the bullet being fired, the two other fishermen ran away to find shelter. As soon as they considered the situation “safe” again, they realized what had happened. They went to pick up Ahmed from the water and brought him to the hospital. The wound is stitched now, but probably surgery will not be necessary. It is still uncertain how long Ahmed will have to remain in the hospital and how long it will take for him to fully recover from this injury.

“I’m a father of two and I am the sole provider for my family. We have nothing else than what I gain from fishing.”

The 3 nautical mile restriction has resulted in a depletion of revenues which pushes people into the dangerous buffer zone. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, there have been nine people injured this month while working in the buffer zone. Ahmed Mahmoud Jarboh marks the tenth victim of IOF buffer zone aggression in four weeks.

Israeli forces assault 7 year old Palestinian in Silwan

26 November 2010 | Wadi Hilweh Information Center

Israeli forces assaulted 7 year old Adam Mansour Rishq during tense scenes in Silwan today. The child was beaten by Israeli troops who accused him of throwing stones at a military vehicle, who then attempted to arrest the youth but were stopped by residents who flocked to the scene. One resident told soldiers that “if you want to arrest him you can send an order to his father, summoning him to the police station.”

An Israeli policewoman was witnessed shouting at the mother of Rishq as she arrived on the scene, accusing her and other residents of covering up their children’s faults. The mother, fearful of the police officer, fled in to the house. Her son was brought in to the house over an hour later, when he was found hiding in a nearby tree out of fear of a repeat attack by soldiers. Rishq, clearly suffering from severe shock, was taken to Sharat Zedek hospital in West Jerusalem where he was treated for trauma and hallucination. Despite receiving treatment for 4 hours, the hospital refused to issue any papers to Rishq’s family to prove the necessity of medical attention following the assault.

Adam’s mother stated that “events such as this make our fears to great as to even send our child to school, lest he be subjected to another attack.” The family’s neighbor who had been present at the time said that “my children have been arrested by the Israelis and sentenced to house arrest, outside their own home of Silwan, in Beit Hanina. The police said they were arrested for participating in an “illegal” gathering on the streets. We do not understand what they mean by “illegal gathering” – my children were returning from school when they were taken by Israeli forces to the police station.”