Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine–The Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel, University Teachers’ Association and The One Democratic State Group condemn in the strongest possible terms the criminal Israeli attack against innocent Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. More than 7 people have been killed within the last 6 hours, including 7-year-old child Ranan Arafat. Charred bodies of injured children are pouring in to Al Shifa hospital and the other depleted hospitals around the Gaza Strip. This heinous crime also comes one week after the re-election of Barak Obama for a second term. Tel Aviv claims to have been given the green light to annihilate as many Palestinians in Gaza as possible.
Gaza has been enduring Israeli policies of extermination and vandalism since 2006. We reiterate our condemnation of the international conspiracy of silence and Arab impotence in the face of these continuous Israeli crimes. We note that not a single action against Israel has been taken by any Arab country. Will the Arab Spring stand aside and watch while we are being butchered? Empty rhetoric will no longer be accepted. Words of condemnation have to be translated into action!
We also reiterate our call on all civil society organizations and political parties to boycott Israeli embassies and compel their governments to sever their diplomatic ties with Apartheid Israel. This time, Apartheid Israel must not get away with its crimes against the innocent civilians of Gaza. All students and academics should stand in solidarity with their Palestinian colleagues and peers. We ask, what more does the international community need to see to be convinced to act than the dozens of dead corpses of children in Gaza? It is left to civil society and people of conscience to stop the ongoing massacre in Gaza.
Inaction has led us to this point.
ACT NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
One Democratic State Group
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel
For two days, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) bombed and shelled civilians in the Gaza Strip. Five Palestinian civilians including 3 children were killed. 52 civilians including 6 women and 12 children were wounded. Many of the injuries remain critical, some have amputations. 2 members of the Palestinian resistance were also killed in the attacks.
Four of these deaths and 38 of the injuries resulted from an Israeli attack on a football playground in al-Shoja’iya neighborhood East of Gaza City, many of whom had gathered for a funeral close to where the attack took a place . Some civilian facilities were also destroyed or damaged.
16 October 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
The Israeli air force has conducted several air raids at night starting on the 12th of October, and ending on the morning of the 13th.
“I felt a huge explosion at midnight while in a cafè with some friends. The first attack hit a Hamas military base north of Gaza City (in Nafaq street). Later, empty spaces in the refugee camps of Al Bureij and Nuseirat were hit, in the central Gaza Strip. Military aircraft continued to fly sporadically that night.
At 3:20pm on the 13th I heard another huge explosion caused by an Israeli strike on a site belonging to the resistance, north of Gaza City.
F-16 fighters flew for at least half an hour longer. An attack was also reported in an uninhabited area in the Bedouin village Um Al Nasser in Beit Lahia, which is located in the northern Gaza Strip. Later I learned that in this area the shelling had damaged a kindergarten.
Israeli forces have subsequently claimed to have struck, “a site of terrorist activity in the northern Gaza Strip and two others in the central area”. Given that they are centers for the Palestinian resistance and that terrorism is daily implemented by the Israeli army with attacks by sea, air and/or by land, this statement is false. The objectives that were hit are sites of the resistance, north of Gaza City, but are also vacant spaces in the central area. In addition to these attacks took place in Beit Lahia. These statements, which have been copied by the Italian media are patently incorrect and are useful to specifically justify the attacks.
With the idea to show what happened during that evening, there was a consultation with centers for human rights and other local contacts. Today I went in the village of Um Al Nasser to photograph the damaged kindergarten.
I discovered that the ‘Um Al-Nasser kindergarten was built through the project “Education for Peace and Architecture in the Gaza Strip” that had been promoted by the Italian NGO Vento di Terra, and financed by Italian Government Cooperation.
I went there with a Palestinian activist, we were accompanied by local people to visit the inside of the kindergarten. The walls have cracks and some pieces have fallen.
Then the village men met with us outside to see the cavity in the ground caused by the bomb dropped from an F-16. The bomb was dropped near the nursery, where there is also an agricultural land and a chicken farm.
I must admit that I risked a lot to be in that place at such a late hour, it was about 6:00 to 6:30 in the evening. Drones flew over us while we were in the agricultural land about 700 meters from the border with Israel.
“Get away from us, if they hit, they will hit the entire group,” said the Palestinian activist.
At such times it is difficult to remain focused-
It was completely dark, the only light was on a cell phone. I did not want to be separated from other people and at the same time I contemplated my own personal survival. I began to imagine our bodies suddenly reduced to pieces. Nausea and dizziness encroached upon me, as drones continued to be there… right on top of us.
I took pictures quickly on the spot where the bomb exploded and on the outside walls of the asylum. I just had to do this work, then I would go. I would do this in spite of my fingers trembling on the camera.
-Luckily everything went well this time.
We also found pieces of the bomb. Once we left the kindergarten we visited a house nearby damaged by the attack. Abu Idrees Sharikh, age 52, told us that the attack occurred around 1:45 at night. He invited us to come in and began to point out the cracks on the walls of his home caused by the explosion. She told me that her daughter, Sabrin, age 16, is shocked and unable to speak. Their family is originally from Ashkelon. The families of this Bedouin village are extremely poor and live under constant threat of air strikes. They are refugees yet they do not receive any services from UNRWA because it does not consider the area included among those to receive aid. The village of Um Al Nasser is definitely one of the worst areas of the Gaza Strip concerning living conditions.
I left and went back to Gaza City.
I went to an outdoor cafè for a moment of calm. I hoped I could connect my computer and start working, but suddenly I heard an explosion at about 20:15.
There is no peace.
An Israeli raid killed two men on a motorcycle in Massoud street in Jabalia, north of Gaza City.
The first man died on the spot, Fayeq Abu Jazar, he arrived at the hospital without a head. The second man, in critical condition, died later in the hospital. Hesham Ali Su’eidani, age 43, was the leader of the Salafist group. Hesham Ali Su’eidani was also the leader of the Salafist whose release had been asked by the killers of Vittorio Arrigoni.
A second attack at about 8:30 am hit the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City where there is a site of Al Qassam Brigades, which is the armed wing of Hamas. No injuries were reported.”
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.
Hassan Oda, 24
Imad Abu Nahl, 29, who was driving at the time of the attack.
Imad Abu Nahl
Hassan Yassin, 28, who was crossing the street at the time of the attack.
Hassan Yassin, 28
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.
Ayoub Asalya, 12, was going to school on Sunday morning when he was killed by an Israeli missile. On the walls of his house there is a poster with his image. Ayoub is shown smiling with a cap on his head.
“The nights before he was killed, he came to me stating that he was afraid to sleep alone in his room because of the attacks,” his mother told us.
So that night Ayoub slept in his mother’s room, and he woke up early in the morning to go to school.
“Before leaving,” said his mother, “he asked me to buy a new pair of shoes, and he told me that he would buy me a present for Mother’s Day.”
“After a few minutes I heard an airstrike, I ran outside, and I found an injured boy, Wafi, Ayoub’s cousin, lying with his face on the ground. The ambulance arrived and transported Wafi to the hospital.”
The personnel of the ambulances started looking for other potential injured and suddenly one of them started shouting “A Palestinian kid with a school uniform has been killed.”
Ayoub’s body was torn into pieces everywhere. A neighbor recognized Ayoub’s face and he informed his family that he had been found dead. His mother started running and crying.
“I cannot think to have found my son, with whom I had spoken to a few minutes before, suddenly reduced into pieces. We found him without the lower part of the body. Now who will bring me a gift for Mother’s day? The Israelis declared to have hit members of the resistance movement this means that Ayoub was throwing rockets? Where are the human rights of the Palestinian people? My message should reach the whole world; we should expel all the Israeli ambassadors from our countries.”
Ayoub’s mother took her son’s schoolbag; she showed us his school books.
She then brings us to a place close to the house where the signs of the attack are still visible. Materials scattered everywhere on the ground. His mother begins to collect them.
In her hands, together with pieces of the ground, small pieces of flesh, it is the flesh of her son’s body, still there. She shows them to us. She kneels down and she collects some more. She approaches her hands to her face, she smells them. Then she smells them again and she turns towards another woman smiling and holding out her hands, inviting her to smell those pieces.
Her smile was full of love for her child. Her son is still there, in her hands, even if reduced in small pieces of flesh. Then she collected from the ground leaves and lemons, stained by his blood, and small pieces of his clothes. She would have continued to collect what was left of her son, if a relative had not intervened asking her to go back home.
A mother who picks up the remains if her son must be very strong, but her eyes cannot hide the terrible pain of his loss.
Before I left, she rubbed her hands on mine, tightening them, calling me “habibti”, hugging me.
What I am describing is not a horror movie but the horrors caused by Israeli’s shelling. However, the Palestinian people resist.
“Alhamdulilah,” thinking to the future, tomorrow the children will resume going to school and new lives will born, even under the sound of the drones and the F-16.
Rosa Schiano is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
