Tag: Beit Hanoun

Israel bombs Gaza on the eve of Eid ul-Fitr – the second attack since peace talks resumed

Palestinians walking along the edge of the bomb crater in Gaza City - Photo: Tilde de Wandel

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

10 September 2010

Gaza City, GAZA STRIP

The Israeli military carried out air strikes on three regions of the Gaza Strip late last night, as inhabitants were preparing to celebrate Eid ul-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end the holy month of Ramadan that starts today. It constitute the second missile attack by Israel on Gaza since negotiations resumed on 2 September 2010.

Just before 11PM (midnight Israeli time) last night (9 Sept. 2010) Israel dropped two missiles on Gaza City, three on Rafah, one on Beit Hanoun and a further missile on Deir Al Balah, a second central Gaza location.

Following the Gaza City bombing, which witnesses on the scene said landed inches from the spot of a previous missile attack near Arafat’s Compound one month ago, only two slight injuries have been reported so far.

However in Rafah, in south Gaza, it is feared that there may be casualties as there are currently reports of missing persons, predominantly among men who work in the tunnels connecting the besieged Gaza Strip to Egypt. The Jerusalem Post reported that Palestinian security forces had announced at least five injured.

As well as the missile dropped from the air on Beit Hanoun, in the north of the Gaza Strip, an Israeli tank also fired six shells. The target was a military training site of the armed wing of Hamas.

There are also unconfirmed reports of missiles in Khan Younis.

At the time of writing, one hour after the attacks, war planes were still hovering over Gaza, and residents said they feared further attacks.

Background

Media contacts:
ISM Gaza, Adie Nistelrooy: 05977 176 96
ISM Media Office, Ramallah: 05461 800 56

A bomb crater in Gaza City - Photo: Tilde de Wandel

Live ammunition used on demonstrators in Gaza who move a section of the buffer-zone fence

18 August 2010 | ISM Gaza

On Tuesday morning a demonstration in Gaza by Palestinian activists from Local Initiative Beit Hanoun, with four International Solidarity Movement volunteers and other international activists and journalists was met with live ammunition fired by the Israeli army.

Soldiers opened fire on protestors in the buffer zone in Beit Hanoun, near to the Erez crossing but the demonstration succeeded in moving a section of the barbed wire fence dividing land on the Gazan side of the border.

Saber Al Za’anin lead the chanting against the occupation, siege and attacks on Palestinian farmers in Beit Hanoun, accompanied by about thirty Palestinians, nine international activists and a press team.  The crowd marched towards the wall around the Erez crossing and one of the watch towers was open, evidently monitoring as the group approached the wall at about 100 metres.  The barren waste land all around was a result of forced neglect – the place has rendered out-of-bounds to Palestinian farmers due to the threat of Israeli snipers and shelling.

The buffer-zone is 300 metres wide and stretches along the entire border fence on the frontier with Israel. Violent attacks by the Israeli military on anyone in the area have recurred consistently – and frequently live ammunition has been used against peaceful demonstrators and even farmers harvesting crops. According to the Palestine Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) the violence of the ‘buffer zone’ enforcement means that over 30% of Gaza’s most useful arable land “cannot be worked without severe personal risk, causing the loss of livelihoods.”.

“This was the first time anyone has entered this area of Palestinian land since the beginning of the siege. Farmers had long ago given up working on it because of the dangers”, Saber told us. Ssoon after an attempt was made to remove the twisted barbed wire fence positioned by the Israel army to divide two Palestinian fields.

A sniper was stood on top of one of the checkpoint towers and once protestors started to move the fence, live bullets were fired within 5 – 10 metres of the demonstrators. Two further attempts were made to move the fence and the firing increased, dust clouds rising from the ground where bullets bounced around people’s feet.  The men and women on the demonstration returned for cover, fortunately without casualties except for some minor scratches from dragging the fence.

History of Attacks

In recent years the land around the Erez border has seen frequent attacks.

Kamel Iswalim’s family and brothers’ families lived just 500 metres from the border, right next to where the demonstration began. There had always been regular incursions and every six month the families were corralled by the IDF and shut into one room for hours. In 2006, his brother’s small two-room house was demolished by bulldozers. In 2007, the whole area was shot at by tanks, and Kamel was hit in the leg. On 5th January 2009 during the bombardment and ground assault on Gaza that left over 1400 Palestinians dead, Kamel’s house was targeted.

Soldiers came to the front of the house at night, yelling in Hebrew that the family must leave the house within five minutes. They got shot at while coming out of their house, and they had no time to grab their belongings. Then they watched it being bulldozed, together with their five water wells and all of their trees. “Go to Gaza City and never come back again”, they were told by the soldiers. Kamel’s family lost everything they had and shortly after his father died from a heart attack from the ordeal.  In total, there were ten houses destroyed in that area along with Gaza’s sole agricultural college. They are unable to farm any of the 13 dunums of land they lost – they cannot even enter it anymore, let alone rebuild their house despite it being further than 300 metres from the Israeli border.

“I have five sons and five daughters”, Kamel said. “I can’t offer them anything. I have two sons in college, and don’t know where to get the money from to enable them to finish their studies.” The whole family is now living in a hut on land which is one kilometer from the border, and it doesn’t belong to them. But farming this land gives them a salary of 50 dollars per month – 50 dollars for a family of twelve. “When we were last shot at?” Kamel laughs sadly. “We are shot at pretty much every day, even here, one kilometer from the border.”  His neighbour Ab Dir Kadel Rahmed tried his luck and spent four years rebuilding his house, after it was destroyed in 2006. It lasted six months before the Israeli military demolished it again.

“I call the western governments to stand up and stop what’s going on here. It’s enough”, Kamel says. “Enough lives were destroyed, enough people were killed. It’s just enough.”

Two dead and four children injured in Israeli nail bomb attack in Beit Hanoun, Gaza

By ISM Gaza | 22 July 2010

Four-year-old Haitham Thaer Qasem, injured by an Israeli nail bomb - PHOTO: Tilde de Wandel

“She came in through and it wasn’t clear she was injured. Suddenly a lot of blood came from her nose and she vomited. All of the family saw this – her little brothers were very scared. She had just been playing in the front of the house.”

This is a mother describing to us her daughter, 9-year-old Sammah as she came in to her home at 4pm after the Israeli army reportedly shelled and fired four bombs into and around a residential area in Beit Hanoun, Northern Gaza. She is now in a semi-critical condition in hospital, suffering extensive blood loss and very low haemoglobin. She was hit by shrapnel and ‘flechettes’ from a nail bomb that landed 100m away, causing internal bleeding to the chest, severe head trauma and nails embedded in her body. Shells containing flechettes are illegal under international law if fired into densely populated civilian areas and Sammah ‘Eid al-Masri is one of four children injured in the attack yesterday, July 21st.

Two young men were killed: Mohammad Hatem al-Kafarna, 23, from severe shrapnel injuries in his back and chest and Qassem Mohammed Kamal al-Shanbari, 20, caused by injuries from nails embedded in his skull and shrapnel wounds to the back. It was unclear earlier whether they were resistance fighters or if they were civilians – the Israeli Occupation Force called them ‘militants’ – just as they called the four children, aged between 4 and 11, who were left hospitalised by their injuries ‘militants’. Their parents could be found weeping over their loved ones in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City last night.

We first visited Haitham Tha’er Qassem, a four year old boy and a first and only child. He was sleeping on the hospital bed, occasionally gasping for breath through the strapping around his nose. He had suffered deep nasal trauma, and flechette darts from the nail bomb were still embedded in his tiny body, where they had pierced his back, right elbow and right leg. He was 200m from the impact of the bomb.

In his hospital ward his mother was standing to one side crying quietly and another relative at Haitham’s bedside explained what had happened.

“We had asked Haitham to get shopping for her from the market…then we heard the bombings and somebody came to our home and told our family that he was in the hospital and was injured in the bombing. We came quickly to the hospital.”

In a nearby ward we then visited 9-year-old Sammah ‘Eid al-Masri who was in a worse state. The doctor told us she was in a ‘semi-critical’ condition with severe chest, head and abdominal pain. Her blood-loss was a major concern, arriving at the hospital with 7.5 haemoglobin levels, 4-6 below the normal levels, the problem exacerbated by the fact that she, like three of her brothers, already suffered from a blood condition known as Thalassemia for which the drug Exjade is in extremely short supply due to the Israeli blockade. She was clearly in pain and confused, trying to remove the nasal tubes. Her mother showed us the bandages on her chest.

“She was in a very bad condition when she arrived – it’s difficult for children and very traumatic to insert a chest tube. Very painful. Blood was mainly coming from the chest. We will have to perform surgery and we will further explore her abdominal pain”, the doctor tells us.

This is not the first time the family was attacked, Sammah’s 4-year-old brother Ryad ‘Eid al-Masri was injured during Operation Cast Lead, the three week Israeli assault over the New Year of 2009 period, during which over 400 Palestinian children were killed.

“Our house was hit during the war, a neighbour sheltering inside was killed and our son suffered severe head injuries. He wasn’t able to access the care he needed and because of this his sight is now permanently damaged.”

As we left Sammah, she had begun to cry, moaning in serious discomfort and confusion. There were two more injured children in the hospital following the attack:  Mohammed ‘Azzam al-Masri (aged 9) fractured his right hand as he fell while trying to escape; and Ibrahim Wissam al-Masri (aged 6) whose back was injured by shrapnel.

- PHOTO: Tilde de Wandel
The Abu Said family house, scarred after a nail bomb attack - PHOTO: Tilde de Wandel

It’s not just the siege. Criminal Israeli violence continues unabated, resulting in Palestinians in Gaza – children like Sammah, Haitham, Azzam and Ibrahim – and their families experiencing horrific pain and suffering. Last week it was the Abu Said family, attacked in their home on the border East of Gaza city; they lost Nema, a 33-year-old mother of five as she went outside to look frantically for her youngest son. Three more family members were also injured, again by the thousands of ‘flechette’ darts unleashed by the nail bomb assault. Many of these darts will remain permanently embedded in their bodies.

Palestinians remain incredulous to the idea of justice. They will remain so as long as they’re allowed to be dismissed as footnotes by those supporting, or blindly ignoring, what has happened to them and is being done to them. But those who meet them like we did yesterday will never forget what they go through. And people of conscience around the world are beginning to open their eyes instead of turning their backs and acting against these ongoing atrocities.

UPDATED
28 July 2010: The details of names, ages and specific injuries in this post were corrected slightly according to PCHR (Palestinian Centre for Human Rights) information (opens as PDF).

PCHR reports that a fifth child was also injured as a result of the attack: Baraa’ Rajab, 8, wounded in the head.

“Together we can end this occupation”

Jody McIntyre | The Electronic Intifada

29 January 2010

Saber Zanin volunteering in an orchard.

The Israeli military recently dropped hundreds of leaflets warning Palestinian residents from the village of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip not to travel within 300 meters of the border – the distance of Israel’s so-called “buffer zone.” In response, local activists marched to and nonviolently demonstrated inside the “buffer zone” against the illegal action. The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre recently spoke with demonstration organizer Saber Zanin.

Jody McIntyre: Can you tell us about yourself?

Saber Zanin: My name is Saber Zanin. I am 31 years old, living in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip. I am a Palestinian who loves life, peace, justice and equal rights for all.

I come from a poor family, around 20 of us in all, from Beit Hanoun. In November 2006, our house, the house I lived in my whole life, was completely destroyed by Israeli air strikes, and then by a tank which came to finish the job. We don’t know why they chose to target our home, but this is an example of the collective punishment we face living in Gaza.

I had the idea to create a group of volunteers, to work together in the local community, to resist Israel’s occupation through nonviolent methods, and to encourage others to do the same. In September 2007, the “Local Initiative” was formed. Rather than relying on governmental institutions or foreign agencies, we work in a personal capacity, and rely on ourselves for everything we need. Altogether the group now consists of around 60 young men and women, from 17-35 years of age, and although we have no political affiliation, we all agree on socialist principles of helping those most in need, and on each individual’s freedom to express their own views.

The group works with all sections of society: women, children, people with disabilities and teenagers. In particular, we give priority to the farmers and residents working and living in the so-called “buffer zone.” As a group, we visit the residents and offer them aid brought by charities to Gaza (although this is small in amount, and limited in effect) for nothing in return, and we accompany the farmers who continue to work on their land, despite regularly being shot at by the Israeli military for doing so. We also work with the young kids in their area, taking them presents, playing games with them and making parties for them, as well as practicalities such as not going out onto the street in certain areas.

The people living in the “buffer zone” are the foundation of the Local Initiative. If there are any farmers who want help working on their land, we will go to help them. We have also organized protests against Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank and the “buffer zone.”

We are always looking for ways to encourage others to join us in our popular resistance against the occupation, and as part of this we try to teach the local community about the human rights they possess: the right to freedom of expression, the right to live freely, the right to an education, to work, to health care, and to a home. We want people to know about their rights so that when they are taken away from them, they will fight for them.

JM: As someone who used to participate in armed resistance against the occupation, what made you adopt nonviolent resistance?

SZ: Any occupied people have the right to resist, and Palestinians are occupied by the Israelis. It is our fundamental right to resist against this occupation. I used to participate in armed resistance, but armed resistance isn’t everything. I am convinced that popular resistance, and protesting against the occupation through nonviolent methods, can actually achieve more than armed resistance, by gaining the sympathy and support for our struggle from people around the world. When we go to protest against Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank, as they do in the villages of Bilin and Nilin, and now here in Beit Hanoun in Gaza as well, we have international activists marching with us, and the whole world is watching. Our demonstrations are nonviolent, so the Israeli army has no excuse to shoot at us and to kill us. I believe that this is one of the noblest ways of protesting against the occupation.

Last week, the Israeli military dropped hundreds of leaflets near the “buffer zone,” instructing residents not to go within 300 meters of the border. We reject this illegal de facto land grab, and in response organized a march to the “buffer zone” on Monday [11 January]. The march was under the slogan: “With popular resistance, we challenge the decisions of the Israeli occupiers.” We protested against the occupation through nonviolent means.

We will now be marching to the “buffer zone” every Monday. We will not be intimidated by the Israeli army’s threat, and we will never give up until the occupation is over.

JM: How can people living abroad support your struggle?

SZ: As we move into the new year, the Local Initiative is in urgent need of funds, in order to continue supporting the families living in the “buffer zone,” and to purchase materials in order to document the ongoing crimes of the Israeli occupation forces.

We truly hope that activists from around the world will support us. They could also write in the media against Israel’s crimes, organize demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy – some governments have even expelled the Israeli ambassador! In the UK an arrest warrant was issued for Tzipi Livni for the war crimes she committed against the people of Gaza, and this should serve as an inspiration for others to follow. Together, we can end this occupation.

Beit Hannoun demonstrates to reclaim their land

Gazans demonstrate against the siege in Beit Hanoun

ISM Gaza

18 January 2010

Today the 18th January 2010 four International Solidarity Movement activists participated in a demonstration to reclaim Palestinian Land in Beit Hannoun, northern Gaza. The demonstration was organized by the Local Initiative Beit Hannoun Group and around 15 activists attended. Activists gathered in front of the Agricultural University College which now lays in rubble after it was bombed during operation Cast Lead.

Activists then walked towards the border chanting “the occupation must stop” and “open Gaza’s borders” along the way. The demonstrators stopped at 250 metres from the border. Saber Zanin, the director of Local Initiative Beit Hannoun, described how farmers face being shot at on a daily basis as they attempt to work their lands that lie in the buffer zone. This, he insisted, can no longer be tolerated by the International Community. He called upon Israeli Authorities to respect international law and stop attacking farmers. Pointing to a plot of land which lies close to the border he said “we will be back soon to replant this land which now lies empty”.

Today’ demonstration to reclaim Palestinian land is the second with the first having taken place last Monday. The aim is to make this demonstration a weekly one based on the lessons learnt from the non-violent weekly demos held at Nilin, Bilin and Al’ Masara.

In May 2009 and again in December 2009, Israeli Authorities threw flyers across Gaza threatening to shoot farmers who venture closer than 300 metres from the border. Since then there have been numerous reports by human rights organisations of farmers being shot at as far as 1 kilometre. According to agricultural institutions such as the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC), the land in the buffer zone is the most fertile of all Gaza. Farming is one of the traditional forms of employment in Gaza but more and more farmers stop farming their lands due to the danger they face. 65% of Gaza’ 1.5 million population is currently unemployed and 85% are living in poverty and dependent on UNRWA support.