Tag: Buffer Zone

Israeli army fires on Gaza demonstration at Erez Crossing

10 May 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

The Israeli army fired on 50 Palestinian and international activists protesting the Israeli-enforced closure of the “buffer zone” at Erez Crossing in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip today.

The demonstration, organized by the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, was joined by activists from the International Solidarity Movement – Gaza Strip.

Led by farmers and other Beit Hanoun community members, it was forced to withdraw by machine-gun fire after nearing the Israeli wall and its gun towers at 11:45 am.

As protesters retreated, bullets struck the ground around them.

“We are fighting for our rights. This is peaceful, popular resistance,” said Saber Al Zaaneen, Beit Hanoun Local Initiative coordinator. “They opened fire directly at the demonstrators. Thank God no one was injured. This shows the aggressive way Israelis deal with these demonstrations.”

The illegal “buffer zone” was originally established 50 meters into the Gaza Strip, according to the Oslo Accords, and has been unilaterally increased by Israel since then.

Now reaching 300 meters according to Israel, and often stretching up to 2 kilometers in practice, it prevents Gaza Strip residents from accessing large portions of their coastal territory, including 30-40% of its farmland, without grave danger.

Today the farmers of Beit Hanoun harvested their wheat

26 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Today the farmers of Beit Hanoun harvested their wheat. This would be unexceptional news in any other part of the world, but in Palestine things aren’t always so simple. Beit Hanoun is close to the Israeli border, a border where Israel imposes an illegal “buffer zone” in which it claims the right to shoot anyone it wishes. Israel claims the buffer zone is 300 meters wide, but farmers and scrap collectors who work along the border are often shot at at distances up to 1.5 kilometers from the border. The border is lined with massive towers containing guns, sometimes the guns fire, and people die. You won’t read about the dead in the New York Times though, they are Palestinian and their deaths are unremarkable and un-newsworthy.

In honor of the slain Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni the Local Initiative, the group that organized today’s harvest, had decided to launch the Vittorrio Arrigoni Campaign to Harvest Wheat. Today was its first action. Vittorio had often worked with farmers to plant and harvest their crops along the buffer zone, after his death we continue to harvest in his name, in his memory.

We set out to the fields at about eleven. Loudspeaker, posters, and scythes ready. We parked the van and started to walk to the fields, playing Vittorio’s favorite song, Onadeekum, over the loudspeaker. We reached the field and set to work; kneel, cut, and make a pile of freshly shorn wheat. The field we were working in is about a kilometer from the border, it doesn’t look like much is planted closer to the border than this. It is dangerous to work close to the border. After a few minutes shots ring out. They aren’t aimed at us though, at some other unseen farmer, maybe a poor man trying to collect rocks to make cement which is in critical shortage in Gaza due to the blockade Israel imposes. Back to work we go, the wheat still needs harvesting, and there is nothing to be done about unseen shooting. Perhaps later we will read about the death of somebody in the newspaper, but you can be sure that the New York Times will make no mention of the murder. We didn’t finish harvesting the wheat today, but we will back, we will continue to challenge the illegal buffer zone that Israel imposes on Gaza.

We left Gaza city early …

13 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

We left Gaza city early; we were going to Faraheen, a small village near the buffer zone to help farmers plant peppers. Israel has declared a 300 meter “buffer zone” along the entire border with Gaza. What does the buffer zone mean? Simply, that Israel will shoot anyone who approaches within 300 meters of the border. They don’t really have rulers though; usually they don’t even have soldiers. Just remote control guns controlled by teenage conscripts in the basement of a military base somewhere, maybe an office park, maybe the soldiers telecommute, that would be more convenient for them. For the soldiers, it is basically a video game, push a button on your mouse, and shoot a farmer.

The fields that we were planting aren’t actually in the buffer zone, but they are close, and even being close to the buffer zone is dangerous – it isn’t easy to judge distance with a mouse. April 6th was a beautiful day; the weather was perfect, no wind and not too hot. A drone hovered overhead; occasionally bursts of remote controlled shooting came from the Israeli gun towers that line the border. They weren’t shooting at us; they were shooting at some other anonymous farmer trying to work on his land. Maybe they were shooting at an unemployed man who went to collect rocks near the buffer zone? The importing of cement is banned by Israel, and it is in desperate need to repair the damage from Operation Cast Lead and to accommodate the needs of the growing population.

We didn’t manage to finish planting all of the peppers on Wednesday, so we went back to work on Thursday. The ‘weather’, the farmers joked, wasn’t so good on Thursday, there were a lot of drones, and occasionally the thunder of distant bombing reached our ears. We kept working, what else could the farmers do? They have to plant their peppers to feed their families. The weather kept getting worse as the day wore on, more drones, more thunder. We finally broke for lunch when the Apaches arrived. They hovered over the border like giant evil mosquitoes. Lunch lasted for three hours while we waited for the Apaches to leave. Then back to work. We quit at sundown.

We still hadn’t finished planting all of the peppers, so back to work on Friday. The goal was to finish before noon so the men could go to the mosque. The weather was even worse and the thunder of the bombs was closer; Israel had killed three in Khuzaa, the neighboring village, overnight. There was no electricity, and therefore no water. There is no 24 hour electricity in Gaza, they aren’t allowed to import enough fuel for the power plant, and it was attacked during Operation Cast Lead, so you get electricity when you get electricity. Not having electricity to run the irrigation pumps makes planting peppers rather painful. You take two fingers, jam them into the earth, make a hole, and put the pepper in the hole. If the earth is wet and the soil is loose it is ok, but if the earth is dry it isn’t easy.

The thunder finally reached us just as we finished planting the last of the peppers. It was loud, somewhere in Faraheen. We hadn’t noticed any Apaches in the air, but the noise of the drones had become like background noise – always there. The men took me to my friend’s house. Faraheen was on the news. The younger children were afraid of the bombing, but a bit excited to see their village on the news. The excitement didn’t last. Etufa, the oldest daughter came into the room. She had just heard that a friend of hers had been killed in the bombing. The room grew silent. Etufa went to her room to cry.

The names of the innocents who are killed

5 March 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Omar Maruf was killed by a soldier who was heavily armed, and well equipped with everything the latest Western military industry has to offer. Omar was wearing old, dirty clothes, and collecting stones with his donkey. Omar was not even “collateral damage” unfortunately hit by a misguided bullet or bomb during a military attack: no, a young soldier, heavily armed and well equipped, targeted Omar, who was standing there, with shabby clothes and stones in his hands, and decided to shoot him. A young soldier on a sunny winter morning felt the need to kill a man his same age who he probably considered less important. He knew that this act would never have any consequences and that he wouldn’t have to justify that deed to anyone. Because it was a Palestinian with no rights, whose life didn’t count.

This article is about Omar Maruf, because his life does count. Because his death deserves outrage and a demand for justice. Because I’ve looked into the silent faces of Omar’s grieving brothers, because I have listened to his cousins, who spoke all the more, out of anger and helplessness. How can you just murder a young man, they asked me. How it is possible that the Israeli soldier will not be sued, that there is no justice, that no one cares? Why you can just kill people like us, why can you just shoot Palestinians? Why does no one do anything? Why is no government in the world is helping us, when the Israeli government believes that international law does not apply for them?

So here it is, the story of the death of Omar Maruf. He was twenty years old, and the father of a two years old son. “Don’t go too close to the border, it’s too dangerous,” his cousin Talal has previously warned him. He had no choice, Omar had responded. He had a son who needs food. So he went to the border to collect stones. It was 9:30 in the morning of the 28th February 2011, Talal was about 700 meters away from the border, on his own land. Omar was at 400 meters, when the Israeli soldiers opened fire. He was outside the so-called buffer zone, the 300-meter-wide strip of land along the border with Israel, which the Israeli military has banned from entering under threat of death. It is debatable whether it is lawful to declare publicly to shoot any civilian of the neighbour state who is on his own farmland close to the border. But that is not important, Omar was over hundred yards away from this area.

Talal couldn’t see Omar from where he was standing, he didn’t know what had happened to him, whether the shots had hit him. The soldiers fired several volleys, and with the last volley, they shot the donkey, Talal could see how he died. Why the donkey, one wonders, such a pointless additional cruelty. But Talal didn’t know yet what had happened to Omar. Shortly after, two bulldozers and a tank broke into the land, it was impossible for Talal to come closer. Even the ambulance from the Red Cross which he had called received no permission to approach the donkey cart, even after several attempts to coordinate with the Israeli side. The bulldozers began to dig a ditch around the cart with the dead donkey, almost half a kilometer away from the territory of their own state. Why, one wonders. Why did they dig a ditch around the donkey cart? Shortly after, Talal watched from a safe distance how Omar’s lifeless body was brought into the tank. Why, one wonders. Why did they take Omar with them? Maybe they wanted to treat him, said his cousin. Treat? For two hours, the paramedics of the Red Cross were trying to find out what happened to Omar, where he was, whether he was still alive. In vain. Finally, the paramedics received a call from the hospital of Gaza City: A body had been brought in from the Israeli Erez crossing, Omar was dead.

“What on earth was this soldier thinking when he shot him?” his cousin asks me. “Did he think he would pose any danger? He doesn’t even have money to buy milk for his child. Did he think he had money for a weapon? Did he think he would have a tank?” As if I would have the answer. So I follow the question of why the soldiers have taken Omar with them. They wanted to help him, the family is convinced. I ask one of his brothers, whether traces of medical treatment were visible on his body. He shakes his head. “No,” he says, “I have seen his body. There were no puncture marks of an infusion, no bandages. The bullet had entered at the left side of his body, and had come out again on the other side.” A dumdum bullet, which causes maximum damage. Bullets, which explode on impact inside the body are prohibited according to Geneva Convention 1889, Declaration 3. I don’t mention that that hardly matches the version that soldiers wanted to help. Perhaps the idea is just too reassuring that one of them has actually seen Omar as a human being who needs help.

But something had changed in him. As Omar’s dead body reached the hospital, a notice was fixed to his chest. “Terrorist” it said.

Omar Maruf is the eighth civilian being shot dead in the buffer zone in the last two months. Since the beginning of last year, far more than a hundred workers and farmers have been shot by Israeli snipers in the buffer zone: 18 of them died.

Scrap collector injured in the North

26 February 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

As his family was hungry but running out of cooking gas, Khaled Mohammed Al-Hsunmi (37) went out to collect wood. Cooking gas in Gaza is scarce and expensive (the siege does not allow much gas to enter), so Khaled regularly goes on a hunt for wood. Burning wood is plenty near the border, so he headed in this direction. The 26 of February he was at approximately 450 meters from the fence when an Israeli sniper hit him with a dum-dum bullet. The bullet, which explodes on impact and is illegal under the Geneva Convention, scattered the bones of his right lower leg.

“I have a family of nine. My eldest son is 10 years old and my eldest daughter is 18. I used to be a farmworker, but in the past two months nobody has called me,” sighs Khaled.

He had a surgery with external fixing to solidify his bones. Probably Khaled will need another surgery after a year to transmit parts of his hip bone to the scattered leg bones.

It is not the first time that his family has been put under live fire. His 18-year old nephew, Bilal Shaban Al-Hsunmi, is one of the two people visiting him in the hospital today. Bilal was himself injured on December 11th, 2010, while working as a scrap collector 350 meters from the border. Bilal still walks around with the metal fixing on his leg. He was hit by a dum-dum bullet too and is also waiting for a transplantation surgery to fix his scattered leg bones.

Bilal explains how his two elder brothers were also shot at by the occupation forces while working, which has put the entire family without an income, because the three of them were the only ones with work.

Khalil’s second visitor’s leg is also wrapped in external metal fixing. It is Mohamed Smail Al-Khamadaw (34), Khaled’s neighbor. On November 19th he was also hit by a bullet while collecting rubble 350 meters from the border. “The only thing that kept my leg together was the skin: the bones were shattered to pieces”, says Mohamed. “Nobody else in my family has a job. May God help us find a way to survive.” When he was asked whether he has a message for the outside world, he replied without hope: “I have no message. Any message is useless: Israel will continue doing whatever it wants to do. Anything I’d say won’t make any difference.”

Today’s attack exemplifies yet again Israel’s escalating assault on workers in the border area: since the beginning of November, approximately 40 people have been injured in the buffer zone: the no-go zone as declared by Israeli military that runs along the Gazan side of the border in a swathe 300 to 500 meters wide. However, according to the United Nations, this “high risk” zone stretches up to 1500-2000 meters. The total area amounts to 35% of Gaza’s arable land. Almost nobody enters the no-go zone, so most of the cases of injured or killed people in the last period have been in the high risk area, though it is not clearly defined nor explicitly declared by the occupation forces.