On Friday the 9th of January at 11.30am the weekly prayer demonstration was carried out in Ni’lin. Approximately 100 citizens of Ni’lin together with international and Israeli human right activists took part in the demonstration. During the demonstration the Israeli army used snipers to shoot the new ‘0.22’ caliber bullet, injuring two people.
The army was already present at three different spots close to the clinic long before the prayer had started. After the prayer the demonstrators marched from the clinic towards the construction site of the Apartheid Wall. Even before the demonstrators entered the olive fields the army shot both the old type of tear gas canister and the new type which is much heavier and explodes on impact making it impossible to see. They also shot rubber-coated steel bullets. The demonstration was held back with much tear gas and so remained at the site of the clinic throughout the whole demonstration. There were many more soldiers and border police than usual.
The army was more dispersed and came very close to the clinic. They had snipers using 0.22 calibre bullets as well as border police firing the new type of gas canister from close range. Three people were shot with the 0.22 calibre, one international was hit in the foot, another broke a lower leg bone and the other was shot through the outer thigh. Two were taken to Sheikh Zaid hospital in Ramallah, neither injury was severe, and both men returned to their homes that evening. Another was shot in the hand by the new gas canister and 8 more were hit by rubber coated steel bullets. Many others suffered asphyxiation by tear gas. The teargas was also fired far into the village away from any demonstrators effecting people in their homes. Firing teargas far into the village risks hitting people in the streets, entering homes and increasing the chance of children being injured.
The protest ended at sunset around 5.00 pm. The people of Ni’lin have been demonstrating against the illegal Apartheid Wall since May 2008.
Free Gaza Movement departs tomorrow (Photo of earlier voyage leaving port in Larnaca)For Immediate Release
Larnaca, Cyprus – The Free Gaza Movement vessel, SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, will resume its emergency mission to the besieged Gaza Strip at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, January 14, 2009. The ship will carry desperately needed doctors, journalists, human rights workers, and members of parliaments as well as medical supplies donated by the people of Greece and the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza.
After departure on January 12 at 3 pm from Larnaca Port the boat encountered problems with one of its two generators that was compounded by rough weather. For the safety of the passengers, the captain decided to return to port and the boat docked in Larnaca at about 9 pm on January 12. Thanks to the generosity and support of the people of Cyprus, the problem has been quickly repaired and the boat ready to depart.
Israeli authorities have threatened to use “any means” to keep the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY from reaching Gaza. Despite this threat and a previous attack by an Israeli war ship on our motor vessel DIGNITY, the Free Gaza Movement is determined to continue nonviolently challenging Israel’s aggression and break the siege on the 1.5 million Palestinians being terrorized and slaughtered by Israel in the Gaza Strip. Free Gaza Movement organizer Huwaida Arraf said, “We will not let Israel’s threats deter us. The Israeli authorities have been put on notice again of our mission; any attack by Israel on the boat will be considered a deliberate attack on unarmed civilians engaged in a humanitarian action.”
The medical supplies being taken in include essential parts for ventilators, which will allow the only burn center in the Gaza Strip, at Shifa Hospital, to double its capacity, as well as medicines and basic medical supplies requested by area hospitals in Gaza.
UNRWA schoolAcross Gaza, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is setting up emergency shelters in its schools. Despite two such shelters being cynically targeted by Israeli shelling in northern Gaza last week, many families still seek refuge in UNRWA schools simply because they have nowhere else to go. The massacre on 6th January at the Al Fakhoura School and a second school in the Jabaliya refugee camp north-east of Gaza City killed nearly 50 and injured dozens more.
Two UNRWA schools in Rafah, the ‘A’ and ‘B’ Boys Preparatory Schools close to Rafah city centre, have become temporary homes for nearly 2,000 people. These emergency shelters were set up as thousands of people in Rafah fled their homes following threats by the Israeli Occupation Forces to target entire neighbourhoods lying close to border strip with Egypt. The families in one of the schools were evacuated from communities near the defunct airport on the edge of Rafah city where Israeli ground forces have been basing themselves since invading Gaza on 3rd January. Members of ISM Gaza visited the schools today and met UN staff and some of the families seeking refuge there, such as the Amsi family who have about 15 members of their extended family living together in one classroom.
They also visited the UNRWA warehouse in Rafah, where they spoke to the Area Operations Officer. He confirmed that the supplies currently getting in are not nearly enough to cope with the crisis. Approximately 200 tons of aid per day is being allowed in compared to the 2,000 tons usually brought in daily by the UNRWA. He explained that UN stocks were exhausted a while ago and that the only food people now have comes from this trickle of aid entering the strip. Anything that does get in is distributed immediately.
Destroyed mosque and orphans schoolAt approximately 3.00am on Sunday 11th January, Israeli F-16 fighter jets bombed the buildings of the Dar al-Fadila Association for Orphans, which included a school, a college, a computer centre and a mosque, on Taha Hussein Street in the Kherbat al-‘Adas neighbourhood in the north-east of Rafah. Parts of the buildings were totally destroyed and others were structurally damaged. The school had been assisting about 500 children disadvantaged children. Nearly 20 mosques have now been destroyed or severely damaged by the Israeli military since 27th December. ISM Gaza documented the devastation.
The Rafah Red Crescent ambulance station is now relocating from its base in the Tel Zorob neighbourhood close to the border with Egypt, to Kherbet Al Adas on the other side of the city centre. Tel Zorob is in the area now being targeted so a planned move to the new premises was brought forward ahead of time. Numerous ambulances have been attacked by the Israeli military during the ongoing war on Gaza and 13 paramedics have been killed.
On 7 January, as Spanish human rights advocate and documentary filmmaker, Alberto Arce, and I accompanied Palestinian medics to retrieve the body of a man shot earlier by invading Israeli forces, we were also shot at as the medics carried the body towards the ambulance. It was in Dawwar Zimmo, eastern Jabaliya, near the area which has been occupied by Israeli soldiers since the land invasion began. It’s an area where tens are thought to have been seriously injured by bombing and shooting by the Israeli army, and where many, many more will lie dead, uncollected for days, or weeks, out of reach of the medics whose duty is to retrieve them.
Hassan al-Attal and Jamal had gotten out of the ambulance, a clearly-marked 101 ambulance, and approached the corpse lying in the middle of the street. They wore their Palestine Red Crescent Society uniforms — Hassan’s was bright red with reflective tape, Jamal’s bright orange and white, also with reflective tape — and approached slowly, hands empty except a stretcher to take away the body. Arce filmed as the medics picked up the dead man, put him on the stretcher and began the retreat towards the ambulance. Arce was still filming when the shots cracked out, rapidly but evidently a targeted sniper’s shot, not a machine gun. Incredibly, Hassan and Jamal continued to try to evacuate the body, running with the dead man, before finally dropping the stretcher and fleeing for their lives.
Jamal, in his volunteer medic vest, next to the clearly-marked ambulance. (Eva Bartlett)It was about 1:30 pm, the first day of Israel’s self-declared “ceasefire” and the sniper was aiming at the medical personnel. The ambulance’s siren was still screaming, the driver had been moving quickly away from the sniper, to avoid further hits on us or himself, and we were frantically scouring to find Hassan and Jamal. In the days prior to this attack, seven medics had been killed since the start of Israel’s air and ground assault on Gaza’s population. Tens more had been injured, and Hassan was to join their ranks. A sniper’s bullet caught his thigh, and as he scrambled into the ambulance, the blood seeping through his pants alerted us to his injury.
These medics are all too aware of, many all too familiar with, the mortal risks of their job in the face of invading Israeli soldiers with, apparently, no regard for the Geneva Conventions which should allow and oblige medics to reach the injured and the dead, without being fired upon by the invading army.
It was frightening. I thought we’d lost them both, and they are both young, wonderful men doing a job worthy of medals. The 10 to 15 seconds it took before Hassan and Jamal could jump into the ambulance and pull down its back door were a painfully long stretch, during which I’d feared the worst. As we pulled away, a final bullet caught the back door of the ambulance.
Medics worked quickly on Hassan’s thigh injury: the bullet had penetrated the inside of his upper left thigh, digging into muscle, and exiting a couple of inches from the entry wound. He was impressively brave about it, though obviously in a great deal of pain.
Arce’s video footage caught the incident, and is testimony to what we’ve seen, what medics have told us they’ve long endured, and what Israeli authorities beligerently continue to deny: Israel is targeting medical personnel, as Israeli forces target journalists, civilians, and these days in Gaza anything that moves. No sanctuary, no safety, no guarentee of medical service.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities and four months in Cairo and at the Rafah crossing. She is currently based in the Gaza Strip after having arrived with the 3rd Free Gaza Movement boat in November. She has been working with the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza, accompanying ambulances while witnessing and documenting the ongoing Israeli air strikes and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
The Free Gaza Movement sails for Gaza For more information, please contact:
(Cyprus/Gaza) Huwaida Arraf, +357 96 723 999 or +357 99 081 767
(Gaza) Ewa Jasiewicz, +972 598 700 497
(U.S.) Ramzi Kysia, +1 703 994 5422
UPDATE: The “SPIRIT OF HUMANITY” has returned to port in Cyprus for minor repairs. The crew & passengers plan to depart for Gaza in the morning.
(Cyprus) The Free Gaza Movement ship, “SPIRIT OF HUMANITY,” left Larnaca Port at 3:00 pm, Monday, 12 January, on an emergency mission to besieged Gaza. It is expected to arrive in Gaza at approximately 11am (UST) Tuesday morning. Aboard the ship are 36 passengers and crew, representing 17 different nations. They are doctors, journalists, human rights workers, and five European parliamentarians representing Belgium, Greece, Italy, and Spain (see below for a complete passenger list). The mercy ship also carries desperately needed medical supplies meant for hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
This voyage marks Free Gaza’s second attempt to break through the blockade since Israel began attacking Gaza on 27 December. Between August and December 2008, the Free Gaza Movement successfully challenged the Israeli blockade five times, landing the first international ships in the port of Gaza since 1967.
The Israeli military violently attacked an earlier attempt by the Free Gaza Movement to send an emergency boat filled with doctors and medical supplies to Gaza. In the early hours of Tuesday, 30 December, the Israeli navy deliberately, repeatedly, and without warning rammed the unarmed ship, the DIGNITY, causing significant structural damage and endangering the lives of its passengers and crew. The DIGNITY found safe harbor in Lebanon, and is currently awaiting repairs.
Shortly before the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY left Cyprus today, the Cypriot authorities informed the Free Gaza Movement that the Israeli government had officially contacted their embassy in Tel Aviv, and warned them that they felt “justified” in using “any means available” to forcibly prevent the mercy ship from arriving in Gaza. At the request of the ship’s organizers, the Cypriot authorities searched the ship prior to its departure to certify that it only carried medical supplies.
Fouad Ahidar, a member of the Belgian Parliament sailing to Gaza aboard the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, responded to concerns that Israel may attack the unarmed ship by saying, “I have five children that are very worried about me, but I told them: ‘you can sit on your couch and watch these atrocities on the television, or you can choose to take action to make them stop.'”
Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have injured thousands of civilians and killed over 900 people, including hundreds of women and children. This ongoing Israeli massacre severely and massively violates international humanitarian law defined by the Geneva Conventions, especially the obligations of an Occupying Power and the requirements of the laws of war.
The United Nations has failed to protect the Palestinian civilian population from Israel’s massive violations of international humanitarian law. Israel has closed off Gaza from the international community and demanded that all foreigners leave. But Huwaida Arraf, an organizer with the Free Gaza Movements, stated that, “We cannot just sit by and wait for Israel to decide to stop the killing and open the borders for relief workers to pick up the pieces. We are coming in. There is an urgent need for this mission as Palestinian civilians in Gaza are being terrorized and slaughtered by Israel, and access to humanitarian relief denied to them. When states and the international bodies responsible for taking action to stop such atrocities chose to be impotent, then we – the citizens of the world – must act. Our common humanity demands nothing less.”
Israel has been notified that we are coming. A copy of the notification to the Israeli Authorities is attached. The Free Gaza Movement will hold Israel responsible for any harm that may be done to the ship or its passengers.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Take Action! CALL the Israeli Government and let them know that the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY is coming to Gaza. DEMAND that Israel immediately STOP slaughtering civilians in Gaza and STOP using violence to prevent human rights and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people.
CALL
Mark Regev in the Prime Minister’s office:
+972 2670 5354 or +972 5 0620 3264 / mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il
Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence:
+972 3697 5339 or +972 50629 8148 / mediasar@mod.gov.il
Major Liebovitz from the Israeli Navy:
+ 972 5 781 86248
Official Notification of Intent to Enter
January 11, 2009
To: The Israeli Ministry of Defense, Fax: 972-3-697-6717
To: The Israeli Navy
To: The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Fax 972-2-5303367
From: The Free Gaza Movement
This letter serves as a formal notification to you as the Occupying Power and belligerent force in the Gaza Strip that on Monday, January 12 we are navigating the motor vessel, Spirit of Humanity, from the Port of Larnaca to the port of Gaza City. Our vessel will be flying the Greek flag, and, as such, falls under the jurisdiction Greece.
We will be sailing from Cypriot waters into international waters, then directly into the territorial waters of the Gaza Strip without entering or nearing Israeli territorial waters. We expect to arrive at the Gaza Port on Tuesday, January 13, 2009.
We will be carrying urgently needed medical supplies in sealed boxes, cleared by customs at the Larnaca International Airport and the Port of Larnaca. There will be a total of 30 passengers and crew on board, among them members of various European Parliaments and several physicians. Our boat and cargo will also have received security clearance from the Port Authorities in Cyprus before we depart.
As it will be confirmed that neither we, the cargo, any of the boat’s contents, nor the boat itself constitute any threat to the security of Israel or its armed forces, we do not expect any interference with our voyage by Israel’s authorities.
On Tuesday, December 30, an Israeli Navy vessel violently, and without warning, attacked our motor vessel Dignity, disabling the vessel and endangering the lives of the 16 civilians on board. This notice serves as clear notification to you of our approach. Any attack on the motor vessel, Spirit of Humanity, will be premeditated and any harm inflicted on the 30 civilians on board will be considered the result of a deliberate attack on unarmed civilians.
The Steering Committee of the Free Gaza Movement
PASSENGERS & CREW OF THE SPIRIT OF HUMANITY
Abufalah, Othman Mohammad, Journalist with Al Jazeera Television (Jordan)
Ahidar, Fouad, Member of Parliament (Belgium)
Arraf, Huwaida, human rights lawyer and Delegation Leader (Palestine/USA)
Bitsanis, Konstantinos, human rights worker and crew (Greece)
Bolos, Nikolas, human rights worker and crew (Greece)
Bowden, David, Journalist with SKY TV (UK)
Caruso, Francesco, former Member of Parliament (Italy)
Dabbagh, Ali, Doctor (UK)
Dritsas, Theodoros, Member of Parliament (Greece)
Gentile, Alessandro, Journalist with CNN (Italy)
Gezelius, Mats, Journalist (Sweden/Finland)
Giannopolis, Nikolaos, human rights worker (Greece)
Jacquier, Gilles, Journalist with France Channel 2 (France)
Kampani, Chalent, Orthopedic Surgeon (Greece)
Kanellakis, Yiannis, Journalist with Greek Mega TV (Greece)
Karatzias, Petros, Journalist with the Associated Press (Cyprus)
Kawkuby, Jasir, Doctor and Pediatric Intensive Care specialist (Germany)
Klontzas, George, Ship’s Captain (Greece)
Muncie, Andrew, human rights worker and crew (Scotland)
McLuckie, Garwen, Journalist with SKY TV (UK)
Mourad, Maimouni (Belgium)
Muir, Alistair, Journalist with the BBC (UK)
Nuet, Joan Josef, Member of Parliament (Spain)
Papachristopoulos, Athanasios, Surgeon (Greece)
Pissias, Vangelis, University Professor (Greece)
Pratt, David, Journalist with the Sunday Herald (UK)
Prieto, Monica, Journalist with El Mundo (Spain)
Rahali, Hassan, Journalist (Belgium)
Robbins, Sonia, Surgeon (UK)
Sakorafa, Sofia, Member of Parliament (Greece)
Shakir, Thair, Journalist with Al Jazeera television (Iraq)
Synodynou, Melina, Journalist with Ethnos (Greece)
Tsatsis, Angelos, Journalist with MEGA TV (Greece)
