ISM Gaza Strip: Drone rockets strike Gazan people

20th December 2008

After welcoming the 5th Free Gaza boat this morning, ISM activists based in the Gaza Strip went to see the site of an Israeli rocket attack that had occurred just as the boat arrived, at about 8.30am. Three rockets were fired from a drone plane, killing an Al Aqsa Brigades fighter and wounding a second.


Sari Al Samana

The rockets hit farmland where local families were working their land, grazing their sheep and goats. They ran from the area during the attack, but out of necessity were back at work when we arrived at about 1pm. While we were there, a drone plane was visible overhead; the drones over Gaza land near the border are present to such an extent that life must go on beneath them. They fire rockets without warning.


Mohmin Qraqe

Hearing reports of two children struck by one of these rockets as they played, we went visited Kamel Adwan Hospital and spoke to Dr Ali Abd, the surgeon who initially treated them, and Dr Wissam Hiazi. They explained that one child had shrapnel wounds to face, neck, arms, abdomen and legs, but that both children had brain injuries. One child required brain matter to be returned to the cavity. After cleaning and bandaging the wounds and treating the children for shock, the doctors sent them to Al Shifa Hospital which has the neurosurgery facilities most of the other hospitals lack.


Mohammed Abd el Nadi

At Al Shifa Hospital we met the uncle of one of the boys, who confirmed that there had been no Palestinian firing from the “factory area” where the boys were attacked. Sari Al Sama’na, 9 years, and his friend Safi Al Sama’na, 8 years, were playing on their bikes at 2.45pm today when a drone fired a rocket between them. We went to see Sari, who lay with bandaged head and blank half-open eyes, unconscious since the attack. The doctor caring for him explained he had lost a great deal of blood, and it would only be in about 3 days time that it would be clearer whether death, paralysis, or recovery with brain damage or psychological trauma awaited him. Safi was still in emergency surgery, his brain injury even more severe. The doctor estimated 30% of his rocket & missile injured patients were children, and another 30% women or elderly people.

While in the hospital we visited three more patients. Mohmin Qraqe, 21, is a journalist who was working on farmland on December 7, 3.30pm, in the Jabalia area, when a rocket fell 2 metres away. He has lost both his legs from the very top of his thighs. He told us that his father had been killed in the first intifada when he was 7 days old, in 1987, and his 20 year old brother was killed by a drone rocket 4 years ago while attending a youth camp. He was living at home to be with his mother, as his older brothers were all married. He says he heard no Palestinian shooting before he was attacked.

Mohammad Abd Nabi, a journalist for Al Quds Radio, went to Beit Hanoun this past Tuesday December 16, to record a report on an Apache helicopter attack on two women that day. He was flagging down a taxi when rocket blast fractured his arm, and he sustained injuries to his head and leg. He was taken to hospital in a civilian car as ambulances were already out on calls, and initially he believed he had lost his hand. This is his second injury.

Zohair Washaha, 48, has a fractured leg and nerve damage after a ground to ground missile blast at 7am this morning, while he worked on farmland near Al Wafa Hospital. He heard no Palestinian shooting in the area prior to the attack. Zohair is in the only breadwinner in a family of 11, 3 of whom are at university.

Sheikh Jarrah protest camp demolished by Israeli forces yet again – Two internationals taken by police

Israeli forces have again demolished the protest tent established in Sheikh Jarrah, Occupied East Jerusalem, built on Palestinian private property in support of the evicted al-Kurd family and the 18 Palestinian families who currently face eviction from the neighbourhood.

Two international solidarity activists, one British and one Austrian, who had been staying in the tent, were detained by Israeli police and taken to the local police station for their details to be taken. They were released three hours later.

Israeli forces arrived at the site of the protest camp at around mid-day and began to dismantle the tent despite the protests of Sheikh Jarrah residents who repeatedly pointed out that the tent is built of private property. The police then took two of the international solidarity activists from the site. They were released from the police station three hours later.

Um Kamel al-Kurd, who was evicted from her home of 52 years by Israel had this to say following the most recent demolition of the Sheikh Jarrah protest camp;

“This time there were no order, no paper no reason for the demolishing. Before they referred to either lack of permit or an act of law; any objects that destroy the natural beauty in an area can be removed. This is a law that they did not use since 30 years but now they have implemented it again. Today they only claimed that this is public area”.

“I am sad to see the tent being demolished again. Also I am very frustrated, because we have no means to stop this.”

“Still I am resolute, I will maintain here and if they return to demolish again, we will rebuild it again”.

“Where are the conciousness, where are the hearts of the world? Why are they not defending us and helping us to return to our home?”

Fellow Sheikh Jarrah resident Rima added;

“We are calling the international governments and people to come here. They must implement the international law that they are behind”.

The protest camp was established by the Sheikh Jarrah Neighbourhood Committee following the violent eviction of the al-Kurd family on the 9th November initially to show support for the evicted family and the 500 other Palestinians who are under threat of eviction from the neighbourhood. It has been demolished three times already by Israeli authorities despite being situated on private Palestinian property.

The camp has been used as a cultural centre for the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, regularly screening films, holding traditional Palestinian dancing and showing Palestinian photo exhibitions. The latest demolition of the tent can be viewed as another effort by Israel to react against displays of Palestinian national identity within Occupied East Jerusalem.

The house had become emblematic of the plight of Palestinian residents of Occupied East Jerusalem. The al-Kurd family were previously made refugees from Jaffa and West Jerusalem. They were then made refugees for the second time as they were evicted from their home of 52 years.

A previous protest tent had been active throughout the Summer on the al-Kurd property, as widespread international condemnation of Israeli policy against the family and neighbourhood grew, including an official complaint from the US State Department (see below).

Abu Kamel al-Kurd was immediately rushed to hospital following the family’s violent early morning eviction with high-blood pressure. He was re-admitted to hospital two weeks later where he died of a heart attack homeless.

The Observer: Israeli blockade ‘forces Palestinians to search rubbish dumps for food’

UN fears irreversible damage is being done in Gaza as new statistics reveal the level of deprivation

By Peter Beaumont

To view original article, published by The Observer on the 21st December, click here

Impoverished Palestinians on the Gaza Strip are being forced to scavenge for food on rubbish dumps to survive as Israel’s economic blockade risks causing irreversible damage, according to international observers.

Figures released last week by the UN Relief and Works Agency reveal that the economic blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza in July last year has had a devastating impact on the local population. Large numbers of Palestinians are unable to afford the high prices of food being smuggled through the Hamas-controlled tunnels to the Strip from Egypt and last week were confronted with the suspension of UN food and cash distribution as a result of the siege.

The figures collected by the UN agency show that 51.8% – an “unprecedentedly high” number of Gaza’s 1.5 million population – are now living below the poverty line. The agency announced last week that it had been forced to stop distributing food rations to the 750,000 people in need and had also suspended cash distributions to 94,000 of the most disadvantaged who were unable to afford the high prices being asked for smuggled food.

“Things have been getting worse and worse,” said Chris Gunness of the agency yesterday. “It is the first time we have been seeing people picking through the rubbish like this looking for things to eat. Things are particularly bad in Gaza City where the population is most dense.

“Because Gaza is now operating as a ‘tunnel economy’ and there is so little coming through via Israeli crossings, it is hitting the most disadvantaged worst.”

Gunness also expressed concern about the state of Gaza’s infrastructure, including its water and sewerage systems, which have not been maintained properly since Israel began blocking shipments of concrete into Gaza, warning of the risk of the spread of communicable diseases both inside and outside of Gaza.

“This is not a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “This is a political crisis of choice with dire humanitarian consequences.”

The revelations over the escalating difficulties inside Gaza were delivered a day after the end of the six-month ceasefire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, which had been brokered by Egypt in June, and follow warnings from the World Bank at the beginning of December that Gaza faced “irreversible” economic collapse.

The deteriorating conditions inside Gaza emerged as Tony Blair, Middle East envoy for the Quartet – US, Russia, the UN and the EU – warned explicitly yesterday that Israel’s policy of economic blockade, which had been imposed a year and a half ago when Hamas took power on the Gaza Strip, was reinforcing rather than undermining the party’s hold on power. In an interview in the Israeli newspaper Haartez, Blair warned that the collapse of Gaza’s legitimate economy under the impact of the blockade, while harming Gaza’s businessmen and ordinary people, had allowed the emergence of an alternative system based on smuggling through the Hamas-controlled tunnels. Hamas “taxed” the goods smuggled through the tunnels.

It was because of this that Blair wrote to Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, earlier this month demanding that Israel permit the transfer of cash into Gaza from the West Bank to prop up the legitimate economy.

“The present situation is not harming Hamas in Gaza but it is harming the people,” Blair said yesterday. Calling for a change in policy over Gaza, he added: “I don’t think that the current situation is sustainable; I think most people who would analyse it think the same.”

Blair’s comments came as an Israeli air strike against a rocket squad killed a Palestinian militant yesterday, the first Gaza death since Hamas formally declared an end to a six-month truce with Israel.

Also yesterday, a boat carrying a Qatari delegation, Lebanese activists and journalists from Israel and Lebanon sailed into Gaza City’s small port in defiance of a border blockade. It was the fifth such boat trip since the summer. The two Qatari citizens aboard the Dignity are from the government-funded Qatar Authority for Charitable Activities.

“We are here to represent the Qatar government and people,” said delegation member Aed al-Kahtani. “We will look into the needs of our brothers in Gaza, and find out what is the most appropriate way to bring in aid.”

The arrival of the delegation reflects the growing anger in the Arab world over the Gaza siege, directed at Israel but also at Egypt, which has allowed the border crossings at the southern end of the Strip to remain sealed.

On Friday, thousands of people joined a rally in Beirut organised by Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah movement against Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Addressing the Beirut crowd, Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Kassem called on Arab and Islamic governments to act to help lift the Gaza blockade, and urged Egypt to take an “historic stance” by opening its border crossing with Gaza.

“Silence on the [Gaza] blockade is disgraceful. Silence on the blockade amounts to participation in the [Israeli] occupation,” Kassem said.

Ni’lin hold shoe demonstration against the occupation

19th December 2008

At noon on Friday 19th December, around 150 protesters from the village of Ni’lin, joined by international and Israeli solidarity activists, gathered in the village to protest against the construction of the Apartheid Wall being built on Ni’lin’s land.

This demonstration took the form of a prayer protest on land close to the construction of the Wall. The demonstrators then tried to reach the construction site in order to physically stop the construction where they held up shoes on sticks towards the Israeli forces, following the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George Bush.

Protesters then assembled road-blocks leading to the construction site in order to delay the building of the Apartheid Wall.

Even though international and Israeli activists where present, live ammunition was fired by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).

During the demonstration the Israeli soldiers damaged several buildings in the village. Two of the buildings had windows broken, one of them had four tear-gas cannisters shot though a window. A third house had a water pipe and its solar cells destroyed by the soldiers firing at the property.

A lot of teargas was fired in the demonstration and the violence from the soldiers resulted in ten injuries. Seven people were injured due to rubber-coated steel bullets and three from gas inhalation.

Two members of the press were injured, one of them was shot two times in his knee by rubber-coated steel bullets, despite clearly wearing a vest with “PRESS” written on it.

The other man was a TV reporter who fainted from tear-gas inhalation. When medicals tried to help him they also where targeted with tear-gas which resulted in one of ambulance personnel losing consciousness. Israeli forces were also witnessed targeting the ambulance that was hit with several rounds of tear-gas causing damage to the vehicle.

Stop The Wall: “Our struggle will continue until the Wall is torn down!”

By Mohammed Othman

Jayyous 19-12-2008

To view the Stop The Wall website click here

A massive demonstration against the Wall was held in Jayyous on December 19, with about 700 people, mostly youth, protesting against the new path of the Wall that will permanently confiscate nearly 6,000 dunums of village land. The demonstration, which lasted for nearly five hours, resulted in several injuries to villagers, international solidarity activists, and four soldiers.

At 1:00 in the afternoon, the protesters began to march from the centre of the village, to the south gate of the Wall, which is the area that is slated to be re-routed. As they marched, Occupation forces did not stop them from reaching the gate, but rather they entered the village from two different directions, and stationed themselves in a manner that surrounded the demonstrators. Undeterred by their vulnerable position in the middle of the forces, however, the demonstrators continued to march, and when they reached the gate, several different community activists gave speeches to the crowd, reaffirming Jayyous’ resistance to the Wall, and denouncing the Occupation in general.

For approximately 45 minutes, the speeches continued without confrontation, and it was announced that the village would organize another demonstration next week. As this announcement was made, however, the Occupation forces began to close in on the protesters, and began taking pictures of the youth, in order to facilitate their targeting of the most active people in the future. In response to this, several youth began throwing stones at the forces.

The Occupation forces then began firing tear gas, sound bombs, and rubber bullets into the crowd. According to a Red Crescent doctor, one international was hit in the face by a rubber bullet and had to be taken away from the scene. One person was also arrested by the Occupation forces, but after being held for three hours, the international activists and local youth were able to secure his release. At one point, live bullets were used as well, as the forces attempted to use lethal methods against the protesting villagers. In the face of this violence, the demonstrators were forced to move back into the village, but the confrontations did not end there.

The Occupation forces were only able to enter the village on foot, as roadblocks set up by the villagers prevented the jeeps from entering. Taking advantage of this situation, village youth who were positioned on the roofs of buildings continued to rain stones down on the forces. Four members of the Occupation forces were injured by the barrage of stones, and the forces had no choice but to retreat from the village.

Once they retreated out of throwing distance, the forces fired more than 20 tear gas bombs into the village, causing several serious breathing problems. Two villagers had to be taken away in an ambulance as a result of inhaling too much tear gas.

Throughout the afternoon and into the evening, however, the people of Jayyous refused to back down from the Occupation’s violence and aggression. Led by the youth, villagers continued to chant slogans against the Occupation’s apartheid and against the Wall: “No matter what they do to our land, our land is inside of us, and our struggle will continue until the Wall is torn down.” Furthermore, The people asserted that the struggle and the resistance in Jayyous would not stop until the Wall is torn down, and until they are able to use their land again. This is the new generation of mobilization and resistance, with the youth leading the charge, and the spirit of collective action spreading across the West Bank.