Tag: Civilian Death - Page 2 - International Solidarity Movement

The Al Dalu family. Never forget.

by Rosa Schiano

4 December 2012 | il Blog di Olivia

On 18 November 2012, on the fifth day of the Israeli military offensive “Pillar of Defence” against Gaza, a war bulletin reported 72 people killed, including 19 children, 670 wounded, most of them women and children. That day, the Israeli air force bombed a three-storey building in Nasser Street, Gaza City, wiping out an entire family.

I was, like every day, at Shifa hospital. Suddenly ambulances brought the bodies of the young victims of the brutal attack:

Ibrahim Al Dalu, 11 months old
Jamal Al Dalu, 6 years old
Yousif Al Dalu, 5 years old
Sara Al Dalu, 3 years old

Even their mother died: Samah Al Dalu, 22, and their father, Mohammed Al Dalu, 28. The children’s Aunt also died, Ranin Al Dalu, 22, and the second aunt, Yara Al Dalu, 17, whose body was found just after 4 days in the rubble of the building. And also the two grandmothers died, Suhila Al Dalu, 75, and Tahina Al Dalu, 48. The bombing of the building of the Al Dalu family also hit a building next door, where two people were killed: Mzanar Abdallah, 20, and Amina Mznar, 80. A whole family was wiped out. The bombing took place on the entire three-story building which was completely destroyed.

Shifa hospital, 19 November 2012, bodies of the young victims. By the bodies, Yasser Saluha, the brother of the children’s mother.

On Monday, December 3rd, 2012, I had the opportunity to talk to the brother of the father of the children, Abdallah Jamal Al Dalu (20 years old). He talked about that night. “I was out with my father to to get food, when I received a call where I was told that my house had collapsed. I was shocked.” Abdallah and his father lived in the same building where he lived with the rest of his family.

In Gaza extended families often live together in the same building. Abdallah and his father are the only survivors of the Al Dalu family. All the other members of the family died under the rubble.

“I went home, I saw it destroyed, I could not speak,” continued Abdallah, crying. “My whole family was in the house. Then I went to the hospital and saw the bodies, it was a disaster.” Abdallah’s eyes were reliving what they had seen that afternoon.

Four days after the bombing Palestinian bulldozers excavating the rubble found the bodies of the children’s father, Mohammed Jamal Al Dalu and aunt, Yara Al Dalu.

Now Abdallah and his father are renting another house. They do not have beds to sleep in or the necessary living facilities, nor do they have clothes to wear.

Abdullah has asked us to ask the International Criminal Court to investigate what happened. “Children and women were killed in this massacre.”

Before leaving, I entered another building of the brothers of Mohammed Jamal Al Dalu, and Ahmal Jamal Al Dalu. Ahmal was not in Gaza during the war, but in Turkey, where he lives with his wife and family. “We want justice”, said Ahmal. “We want justice more than financial aid, because the money can go. What has happened is not a mistake, it is a crime. It is inhuman. It is not the first crime, crimes have been repeating for 64 years. We live without water, without electricity. It’s enough. ”

I translated his words in the darkness of the building while a friend lit up my notebook with only the light of the phone, and I said goodbye with a promise to stay in touch.

Our task now is to ensure that these crimes are not forgotten and that the Al Dalu family receives justice by bringing what happened to the International Criminal Court.

Photo of Abdallah Jamal Al Dalu, the brother of Mohammed Jamal Al Dalu

More photos:

The building next to the Al Dalu house bombed, in which two people died, Mzanar Abdallah, 20, and Amina Mznar, 80. The old woman was in a wheelchair and was in the kitchen at the time of the bombing. Her wheelchair was found in the rubble. See more photos here.

On the sixth day of Israeli attacks on Gaza

By Rosa Schiano

23 June 2012 | il Blog di Olivia, Gaza

The sixth day of Israeli attacks on Gaza.

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.

Imad Abu Nahl, 29, who was driving at the time of the attack.

Hassan Yassin, 28, who was crossing the street at the time of the attack.

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.

Mahmoud, 19 years old, killed at Erez during Land Day between dreams and hopes: The words of his family

by Rosa Schiano

11 April 2012 | il Blog di Oliva

On Friday 30^th March, during the “Land Day,” Gaza joined the Global March in order to remember the confiscation of Palestinian lands by Israel which were protested against on the 30^th March 1976. 6 Palestinians were killed and hundreds were injured.

In Gaza this event had the color of blood and the sound of Israeli bullets.

We all met in Beit Hanoun to head to the Erez border. Many people could not continue the march because of the blockade created by the Israeli police.

However, while we were there we learned that many people were able to reach the border, and we also knew about the injured. And so, following alternative ways, bypassing the blockade of the police, we joined them.

What we saw next was at the verge of madness.

A group of young people demonstrated by singing, some were there just sitting or standing, others were trying to remove a barbed wire fence, some were throwing stones of protest, stones that could have never reached the Israeli soldiers and surely not cross the border.

Nonetheless, the Israeli soldiers did not hesitate. They targeted. They fired. Precisely.

The injured were many. It was chaos. Guys riding motorbikes were bringing the injured quickly towards the ambulances and then they were coming back.

The soldiers fired at the arms, at the legs.

I saw grimaces of pain; I heard the screams of pain.

Also Mahmoud Zaqout, 19 years old, was there with us. They also shot Mahmoud, but he was hit straight in the chest.

Mahmoud would have turned 20 on April 19.

After that terrible day we went to visit his family.

He was a calm boy, a lovely boy, his father Mohammed told us, “Mahmoud was 19 and he was still a child. Mahmoud graduated and he worked in his shop near home.

He was very much beloved by the children, and by his brothers and sisters. He always played with them. Mahmoud was the tenth of 12 children.

His parents told us that Mahmoud was preparing himself for this demonstration since two weeks prior. He really wished to do something for the Palestinian cause. Four days earlier he had taken a picture of himself and he asked his family to use that picture in case he was killed.

Mahmoud’s family thought that he was joking, that he said that for fun.

They did not think that this could happen.

Maybe Mahmoud felt that this could happen. Or simply he knew that whoever goes to the border to demonstrate risks his life under the fire of Israeli bullets.

On Friday, after the prayer, Mahmoud went to the demonstration.

His mother told us that before leaving he told her: “If I am late, keep lunch ready for me.”

These were his last words to his mother.

Mahmoud was trying to put a flag at the gate when he was shot by an Israeli bullet. He was transported to Kamal Odwan Hospital. But because he was badly injured, the medical staff decided to carry him to the Shifa hospital, but he died before arriving.

One of his brothers showed us the flag still stained with his blood.

We asked Mohammed from whom his son had inherited this sense of struggle and resistance. The father told us that his family is from Askilon. Mahmoud is not the first martyr of the family. One of his uncles was killed during the shelling of Gaza (Cast Lead Operation).

Mohammed told us that they feel they must fight for their own rights, for their freedom and for justice.

All his family believes that one day the Palestinian people will go back to their land.

One of his brother told us that Mahmoud was anxiously waiting for the following Tuesday, 3^rd April, in order to watch the football match of Barcelona, because Mahmoud was a fan of the team.

They would have watched the football match together.

Mahmoud was aware of the possibility of getting killed. He was ready for that, for the love of his land. But at the same time Mahmoud was also thinking about his future and, as all the youth of his age, he was also thinking to watch the football match of his football team together with his family and friends.

“The loss of Mahmoud is a disaster for the whole family,” his father told us. “But now Mahmoud is with God and we hope he will be ok.”

“In the West Bank more than 300 people were injured. There Israeli soldiers used rubber coated bullets. In Gaza there are F-16 and the soldiers use real bullets, in Gaza the Israeli soldiers shoot to kill the Palestinian people”, concluded Mohammed.

Finally, I asked the relatives of Mahmoud if they feel like sending a message to the international community.

Mohammed, the father, said, “I want to know what Mahmoud has done in order to be killed by Israel. We thank you for your solidarity, and we thank the internationals who are here to support the Palestinians.”

Nedal, one of Mahmoud’s brothers said, “If my brother had been a soldier, and if he had killed an Israeli boy, what would have been the response of the entire world? This question is above all for the governments of the other countries. Me too.. I would like to know what Mahmoud has done to be killed.”

I asked Haiaa, Mahmoud’s mother, how she feels. With her eyes still in disbelief she replied, “I feel like a fire is in my heart. Everyday I go to his room, every day I approach his bed, and I start to cry.”

The mother accompanied me into her son’s room. She showed me his computer, she touched the screen. She showed me a small cupboard with some objects. Toothpaste, a toothbrush, a comb, and some hair gel. She took the toothpaste, she handed it to me and she put it back where it was before.

She showed me Mahmoud’s jeans hanging on a hook, she hugged them. His jeans are still there at their place. Mahmoud’s mother keeps his room as he left it, as if he was still alive, as if he will come back.

I felt out of breath in front of her pain.

I hugged her, a hug full of feelings of helplessness, aware that my embrace could never relieve her pain, aware that nothing will ever bring her son back.

On Tuesday Barcelona won. Mahmoud could not sit on the armchair at home watching the match, but maybe from up there he would have smiled. Now he will wait for the greatest victory, to see the rights of the Palestinian people.

Rosa Schiano is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

His story told by his mother: Ayoub Asalya, 12 years old, killed by an Israeli missile

by Rosa Schiano

19 March 2012 | il Blog di Oliva

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.

They will never beg

by Johnny Bravo

19 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

I have read several accounts over the last few days of how life in Southern Israel has become unbearable for the people living there. In retaliation for the latest provocation by Israel over 200 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. 11 people were injured, one seriously. Most were suffering from “shock”. Two were injured when they tripped on the way to secure areas.

Minister of Strategic Affair and deputy premier Moshe Yaalon on Thursday said, “Anyone threatening us is risking his life. We will retaliate until they beg us to stop.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Israel makes its “best effort to target terrorists and not the civilian population,” but added: “We will not accept the constant disruption of life in the south of Israel, and I advise all heads of terror to think well about their actions.”

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland condemned “in the strongest terms” the rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel. “We call on those responsible to take immediate action to stop these cowardly acts,” she said in a statement Saturday.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. Meeting with opposition leader Tzipi Livni in New York, Clinton said Israel has the right to defend itself.

Why is it that the Palestinians have no right to respond to Israeli aggression? If rocket fire into Israel is a “cowardly” act, what exactly is bombing with F-16’s and drones? Why does Israel have a right to defend itself, but no such rights extend to the Palestinian people?

With the exception of the two men Israel assassinated on Friday, Zuhair al-Qaisy, secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, and Mahmoud Ahmad Al-Hanini, a Hamas military leader, the Palestinians killed remained nameless in all mainstream media accounts.

But I assure you, those killed have a name, and each has a family that grieves for them.

Adel Alessy, sixty-one-years-old, was working as a watchman on a piece of farmland. Saleh, his son, said people came to his house to tell him his father had been killed in an air strike at 10:45 am Sunday morning. “My father was known by all the people in this area and everyone liked him,” said Saleh, “He was working hard, trying to feed his family.” He added, “There were no rockets shot from the farm that day. The Israeli’s know that, but they wanted to do this crime to prevent our farmers from working on their land.”

Adel’s brother Mohammed added, “He worked hard his entire life, and he never refused to help anyone who asked for help.” Adel Alessy is survived by his wife and seven children.

On Tuesday morning Muhammed Mostafa El-Hasami, seventy-two-years-old, and his daughter Fayza, thirty-five-years-old, went to spend the day planting at their small farm. Dr Abed Allalah, his son, explains, “My father was a teacher as well as a farmer for the past 40 years.” Two rockets were fired from the adjoining property. One rocket failed and crashed into a greenhouse, starting a fire. Abed said, “My father and sister went to put out the fire when an Israeli drone targeted them. When we heard the bombing, we went to see what happened and found both my father and sister on the ground in pieces. Fayza’s mother heard her last words, “I am dying.” Her husband died within minutes of arriving at the hospital.

Adel told me, “Israel must be pressured to stop targeting innocent civilians. They must stop killing women, children, and old men. I believe Israel knows they are killing innocent people but they don’t care, because no one in the world is confronting them.” A wife, three sons and four daughters remain to grieve the loss of a beloved father and sister.

Um Mohammed, the mother of twelve-year-old Ayoub Asalya told me how her son was afraid when the air strikes began, and how he slept restlessly by her side the night before his death. Before he left for school he bargained with his mother. She would buy new sandals for him and he’d buy her a gift on mother’s day. A few minutes after he left the house his mother heard an explosion.

She ran out she found Ayoub’s cousin, Wafi, face down in the street. Ayoub’s body was found less than thirty yards from the house in the orchard, under a lemon tree. One of the neighbors said he couldn’t recognize Ayoub. Um Mohammed said, “I can’t imagine my son, who I was just talking with, lying in pieces.” Both legs were severed. One leg was not recovered.

A breeze rustles through the lemon trees. Um Mohammed picks a lemon from a tree that is splattered with Ayoub’s blood. Shreds of his clothing lie scattered on the ground. “The Israeli’s claimed they targeted fighters,” she said, “Do they think Ayoub was shooting rockets? Where are the human rights of the Palestinian people?” Ayoub was the third child of Um Mohammed killed by the Israelis. “Now who will bring me a gift on Mothers day?” she asks.

The injured also have names, dreams, and memory. I was unable to lift my camera to record their injuries, but stood alongside them, silent. A friend did document the injured. You can view photographs of them here: https://palsolidarity.org/2012/03/casualties-of-the-last-attacks-on-gaza-visit-to-shifa-hospital/. No one was crying. Their injuries were severe. Moath Abo al-Eash, twenty-years-old, suffered burns to his face and hands, smoke inhalation, and shrapnel wounds to his chest, torso, hands and face. When asked what message he would like to send to the world, he said, “My picture is enough to tell the world.”

But I am afraid it is not enough. The Clintons, Nulands, Yalons and Libermans of the world are not so easily swayed. The human misery they inflict on Palestine and the rest of the world does not influence their political calculations. They have the power, the money, the sophisticated weapons, and a complicit media. But I can also tell you this; the Palestinian people bear their burden with dignity. Like the people of Libya, the people of Egypt, the people of Bahrain, the people of Syria, and people around the world, they demand their freedom. They will never beg.

Johnny Bravo is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).