International Solidarity Movement - Page 273 - Nonviolence. Justice. Freedom.

Live ammo used as ‘crowd dispersal’

31st July 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Vern | Occupied Palestine

On July 29th, Palestinian activists from the Human Rights Defenders Group, as well as several ISM volunteers, went to the Almezan Hospital in Hebron, and met some of the Palestinians recently shot and injured by Israeli soldiers. Some of them were taking part in clashes; others were watching from rooftops or leaving their cars. They range in ages from 17 to 24-years-old. All of them were shot with live ammunition by the Israeli army.

Here are eight of their stories:

Abdi* is 18-years-old. He is from Beit Fajjar. He went to a peaceful demonstration, which turned quickly turned violent. The soldiers opened fire at the Palestinians, killing one person and wounding nine. Five minutes into the demonstration, the approximately 100 soldiers present began to use live ammunition. They did not throw stun grenades or use tear gas. There were no arrests. The tactic seemed to be to heavily wound or kill people and Abdi was shot in the leg with live ammunition.

Omar* is from Seiir village. He is 22-years-old. Omar was shot and wounded in Beit Anun, which is between Hebron and his village of Seiir. He was shot in the leg with a live bullet, which was fired from 30-40 meters away, and he then required surgery. Three others were also shot and injured that day. Neither Omar nor the people he was with were throwing rocks at the army. People were chanting before they were shot. The Israeli army came to the protest, with the sole purpose of inflicting harm.

Hamdi* is 19-years-old. Last Friday, he was taking part in clashes in Hebron. He was shot in the right leg with live ammunition. Part of his ligament had to be removed. Live ammunition was shot at him and other demonstrators, from 13 meters away. Seven people were injured in the demonstration. When he was carried into the hospital, three other wounded people were carried in with him. Afterwards, four more were brought in. He will need to remain in the hospital for two more weeks.

Nasser* is 19-years-old, and he is from Hebron. He was injured in last Friday’s demonstration, which took part by the Halhul Bridge. A live bullet, fired by a soldier standing some 30-40 meters away, went through both of his legs. It is still embedded in his left leg. The soldiers who shot him started with stun grenades and tear gas, then moved on to live ammunition. Some of the soldiers were using silencers. Nasser lost four units of blood, and will need to spend ten more days in the hospital.

Ali* is 24-years-old, and is from Saiir. He took part in a demonstration at Beit Anun, during which clashes broke out. A bullet was fired into his leg, which exploded upon entry. The Israeli military used rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas, stun grenades, and live ammunition. Ali was shot by a bullet that was fired from a silencer. He was shot from a distance of 30 meters.

Yusuf* is 17-years-old. Last Sunday, he took part in a demonstration against the massacre in Gaza, in Bab Al-Zawiye, the city center of Hebron. He was shot from the roof by a sniper, and the live bullet that entered his leg was fired from a distance of 80-100 meters. A silencer was used. Initially, the soldiers shot tear gas canisters at the demonstrators. Some of the demonstrators threw it back at them. While some of the protesters were throwing rocks, not all of them were, and the soldiers nevertheless fired at everyone. Yusuf has spent 10 days in the hospital already, and does not know when he will be able to go home.

Bukhari* is from Tarkumia, a village near Hebron. He is 20-years-old. Bukhari was injured during clashes near the Halhul Bridge, but he was not taking part in the protests. Bukhari was taking a service (shared taxi) to go home after work, when soldiers closed the bridge. He had to look for another vehicle for transportation, and as he was leaving the service, he was shot. Bukhari was shot with a live bullet that went through his leg, from a distance of 11 meter. He lost eight units of blood. Bukhari will need another 14 days in the hospital, and will need physical rehabilitation for some time, to help him walk again.

Jalal* is 20-years-old. He was injured at Bab Al-Zawiye on Monday, July 21st. That night, clashes were taking place between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. He was shot with a bullet that went into one leg and exited through the other. He was not taking part in the clashes, but instead observing from his roof. He was shot by a sniper who was on a nearby roof. The march he was observing was the second demonstration against the massacre in Gaza, during which people marched from Hosseini Mosque to Bab Al-Zawiye. It was a very large demonstration. Jalal will need to spend at least 15 more days in the hospital.

*All names have been changed for security reasons.

An eyewitness to genocide: a night in Khuza’a

31st July 2014 | Sarah Algherbawi | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Khuza’a is a 4000 acres town that lies east of Khan Younis city in the southern area of Gaza, with a population of almost 11,000 people. On Monday night, July the 21^st, Israeli forces started to bomb Khuza’a heavily, with the aim of destroying it. Before the operation started, the Israeli army ordered the residents of Khuza’a to evacuate their homes, almost 70% of the residents left their homes to UN shelters or relatives’ houses in relatively safe areas, while around 3,000 people decided not to leave.

Mahmoud Ismail, one of the eyewitnesses of the massacre, explained the reasons behind 3,000 people not leaving their homes in response to the IDF orders, saying: “Neglecting Israel’s orders of evacuating our homes was a decision that each of us has made individually, and not at all heroic! It is just that many of us did not have the emotional capacity to sleep away from home, others thought the operation would be over very fast and it wasn’t worth the effort of evacuation, while the majority like me didn’t expect, even in the worst case scenario, that we will witness the worst nightmare of our lives in the coming few hours.”

At first, a bomb cut the main road that linked Khuza’a with Khan Younis, another one then destroyed the power transformers, another damaged the mobile networks, and a fourth destroyed the landlines! Leaving Khuza’a with no electricity, Internet, mobiles, or telephones, completely disconnected.

People spent the whole night in complete darkness; they heard nothing but the noise of shelling, warplanes buzzing, and the falling glass of windows. Fragments of bombs hailing down reached everywhere. Danger surrounded every corner of the house and everybody.

Mahmoud’s mind was besieged with ideas and scenarios that would happen, just as black as the darkness around. He was counting the number of shells, foretelling where they’d fall, whose house that was bombed, is it coming to ours? Which mosque? What kind of bombs are they using? Is it tanks or F16s …? Countless questions with no answers, just the sound of bombs.

The next morning, the ICRC (after hundreds of appeals by residents to save the lives of people, evacuate the injured, and pull out the dead) told them to leave their homes to the entrance of the town to secure their exit. The trapped 3,000 people left their homes in a legion similar to their predecessors, 66 years ago. They reached the entry point with extreme difficulty, but were surprised with Israeli tanks instead of ICRC ambulances, that started to shell and shoot every moving body! People rushed back in the opposite direction; in the meantime, many were killed and injured.

Mahmoud, his family, and other people who he didn’t even know, were able to reach a house that contained 50 people, they distributed themselves into three rooms; believing that this way they might lessen the death toll.

The second night was more horrific, children were crying and screaming, they were terrified and thirsty; as the IDF bombed the town’s water tanks, leaving residents with no water to drink. While Mahmoud and many others were waiting the morning light, hoping that the light would shed some hope.

The light came up, along with a sound of a bomb that hit the shelter. What was even worse than the sound of a bomb was the silence that followed. Everything was hit, and grey is all you see. Moments after, the grey turned into RED! Mother, brother, still alive? He wondered. He checked if he still has his feet, his only way to survive.

Run, he told himself, minutes and he reached his house, once arrived, the house was hit with yet another bomb. He ran again with hundreds of people in different directions, as they came to realize the direction of shelling. On the streets they were stepping on dead bodies and injured people left to bleed. Many faces were familiar to Mahmoud, but they had no choice but to jump over bodies to save their own lives, until they were finally away from Khuza’a.

Why and how Mahmoud, his family, and a number of other families survived, he doesn’t know, its luck and nothing more than luck. They left people behind, and till this moment the actual number of martyrs in Khuza’a is unknown, the only thing Mahmoud knows for sure is that a lot of bodies are still under the rubble.

Gaza Ministry of Health: “Israeli attack on crowded market during ceasefire is ‘barbarity personified'”

30th July 2014 | Gaza Ministry of Health | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Ministry of Health Gaza is outraged at the Israeli massacre perpetrated during the so-called humanitarian ceasefire, when F-16s fired missiles into the crowded Shujeiyah market as hundreds took advantage of the lull to buy food and supplies.

At least 17 people have been killed and 200 injured.

“This atrocity is barbarity personified,” said Director General, Ministry of HealthDr Medhat Abbas.

Not satisfied with exterminating entire families in their own homes, not satisfied with killing people praying in mosques, not satisfied with killing patients, staff and visitors in hospitals, not satisfied with killing ambulance drivers as they retrieve the dead and injured, not satisfied with killing women and children sheltering in UNRWA school, the Israeli death machine now blatantly attacks a crowded public market DURING a humanitarian ceasefire, in an unrivaled cruel and cynical exercise of savagery and barbarism.

The Ministry of Health Gaza condemns this latest atrocity in the strongest possible terms, and considers that any further prevarication by the international community can only be seen as complicity in the increasingly barbaric and clearly genocidal war crimes being visited on the citizenry of Gaza.

The Ministry demands immediate international intervention to bring the rogue ‘state’ of Israel under control, and an immediate end to its carnage in Gaza.

Photo by Ma'an News — Photo by Ma’an News

Gaza: Black sky turns orange

30th July 2014 | Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Since July 25th, international volunteers, including activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and other groups have begun a constant protective presence in various locations at the al-Shifa Hospital. Below is a journal extract from an ISM volunteer during his shift at the hospital on July 28th.

There had been shelling during my shift in al-Shifa. My shift began at 7PM, and in the distance I registered the sounds as everybody else does here in Gaza, I heard the drones without trying to see them. I left Joe [another ISM activist] alone in the hospital; I went in a car for an interview and came back again. The shelling from the sea grew closer. But I couldn’t stay awake for 24 hours just to listen to the noise, nobody can, and I tried to sleep for a few hours.

Then the thunder started, and the black sky turned bright orange, the hospital shook a little, and some windows shattered. I send a short text to the media coordinator for the Ship to Gaza-Sweden saying that this is following me, thinking about el-Wafa hospital, Beit Hanoun hospital, and now al-Shifa. But we weren’t hit. Not this time.

The morning came, we were released by the next shift, and I passed some of the nights targets on my way home. I took a few photos and carried on. There’s so much destruction now that I hesitate to take any more pictures of it. In some areas it is now rare to see an undestroyed building. But of course they claim all of this is to create silence and ‘security’ for Israel, seeing the destruction left behind, I don’t think so.

Video: Free the bubbles

30th July 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

At approximately 1 pm on July 28^th, international volunteers made giant bubbles with Palestinian children to celebrate Eid, in Tel Rumeida, al-Khalil (Hebron).

Several settlers passed by in their cars and were visibly annoyed, and two stopped to complain to the Israeli soldiers present. At 1:30 pm, a group of settler youth started pushing Palestinian children who were playing on Tel Rumeida hill.

Several Palestinian women stepped in to prevent the violence. Shortly after this, more setter children and a settler woman, who identified herself as Tzippi, came down from the illegal settlement of Tel Rumeida and began aggressively photographing Palestinians.

Tzippi claimed that her children had been assaulted. She pushed several Palestinians and put her camera extremely close to several of their faces. One Palestinian girl tried to run away and Tzippi chased her up the street. Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers pushed Palestinians an attempted to force some of them into their houses. Eventually, Tzippi chased the Palestinian girl into her own garden. She was then joined by more settlers. An international volunteer blocked her path, by standing with his back to her with his arms outstretched. Soldiers then rushed into the garden and started shouting at Tzippi.

After a short time the Israeli police arrived. The settlers wrongly accused several Palestinians and the international activist of pushing them. These lies were contradicted by several videos that showed what happened and were shown to the police.

Nevertheless, five Palestinians and the international volunteer were arrested by the Israeli police. They were held for around seven hours, and interrogated. One of the Palestinians remained in handcuffs and leg chains throughout his detention.

Meanwhile, the settlers wandered around the police station pointing out Palestinians who they claimed had assaulted them. These Palestinians were all together in a room with no other Palestinians, and were either in chains or behind an interrogation desk in connection with this case. The “identification” process was therefore of no evidential value.

During his interrogation, the police told the international activist that the settlers were very angry and had filed a complaint about the bubbles. The police officer said that he was not taking that particular complaint further because, “it is not illegal for Palestinian children to play.” The police also accepted his account of the incident. However, they police nevertheless took the fingerprints and DNA of those who had been arrested and only released them subject to strict conditions.