11th July 2014 | International Solidarity Movement| Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Israel’s army fired four ‘warning’ missiles at the roof of El-Wafa rehabilitation hospital in Gaza City, Gaza. International volunteers now staying in the hospital in solidarity, have said they, “can hear missiles falling close by”.
“The civilian population of Gaza is being bombed. We will stay with them in solidarity until the international community and our governments take action to stop Israel’s crimes against humanity.” States Swedish International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist, Fred Ekblad.
The volunteers are citizens of USA, Spain, Sweden, Venezuela, France, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. The first barrage of missiles hit the fourth floor of the hospital at 2:00AM.
At approximately 17:00 a fifth missile hit the fourth floor of the hospital.
Photograph by Manu Pineda
“Windows and doors were blown out, broken glass everywhere, damage to the stairs, there’s a big hole at the impact area and the wall is burnt,“ reports Joe Catron, ISM activist, from the U.S.
At around 20:00 Basman Alashi, executive director of the hospital, received an unidentified call from a person with a, “heavy Israeli accent”, asking if there were any injuries, whether there was any one in the top floor, and whether they were planning to evacuate the hospital.
Alashi says the hospital will not be evacuated because there is nowhere to evacuate the patients too. “El-Wafa hospital serves the patients that need medical attention 24 hours a day. Including patients that can’t move, or people who need to be fed by tube. This hospital is the only one in Gaza specializing in the rehabilitation of people who need physical and occupational therapy. Some of our patients are over 60 years old, men and women. We don’t understand why the Israeli forces have fired five rockets at the hospital in the last 24 hours so far. We serve humanity.”
9th July 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
The Israeli air forces’ strikes on Gaza over the past days have increased in intensity and are creeping ever closer to the center of Gaza City.
Photo by Charlie Andreasson
Just after 2PM yesterday, four people were killed, according to initial data they belonged to Hamas’s armed wing; they were travelling in a car when the drone attacked. The targeting killing was carried out west of Saha neighbourhood in Gaza City, a very densely populated area.
Barely two hours later another attack was conducted, this time a few kilometers north of the downtown area. A giant crater and twisted metal remnants were what remained of a garden, and two missiles fired from an F-16 plane between some apartment buildings.
Inside a house, the floors and furniture were covered with shattered windows and grout from the ceiling, clear cracks appeared in the walls from the strong detonation. An hour later, two more missiles were fired a kilometer south of the harbour. The street was covered with shattered glass from the houses, and even the parked cars had their windows shattered by the blast.
Amihan Shublaq was at home with her family when the missiles detonated; several windows were shattered on her house.
“The attacks are coming closer and closer, next time maybe it is us who get hit,” she said as she held one of her children close.
Fortunately, no one in her family was injured this time. However she still would not leave Gaza, even if she could.
“This is our country,” she continued, “Even if it’s just a country by name. And remember,” she said without raising her voice, “that it was Israel that started, it’s them who want to break the reconciliation between Gaza and the West Bank, that’s why they’re doing this. But we cannot fight against Israel, nor the outside world can persuade Israel to stop the violence. We want peace. The situation is getting worse with each generation, how will it be for our children? They have no future. We must have peace otherwise it will be no future for them, but we also have to have our Palestine, and that Israel will never allow.”
From the street outside, the neighbours sweep away shattered glass; drones can be heard hovering above and in the distance, further explosions.
A man prays surrounded by the remnants of a governmental building in Gaza City.
A building in Gaza City after being bombed by an Israeli F-16.
Belal Almzannar stands in front of his house, next to the building where 10 members of the Al-Dalou family were killed. He lost his brother and grandmather in the bombing.
A kid plays near the whole left in the ground by a bomb in an olive grove in Shuja´iyya.
“I can never forget his image with blood all over his little body and both his legs badly injured,” Umm Mamoun Hassouna told The Electronic Intifada as she sat at a relative’s house in Gaza City. “I am a preacher [for women] at a local mosque and used to preach against harming innocent Israeli children, women or the elderly, and even cutting down a tree,” she said.
Muhammed al-Dam grieves over the body of his son, Mamoun, who was killed on Wednesday from an Israeli airstrike. (Ashraf Amra / APA images)
“After I have seen my son killed by an Israeli warplane in front of my eyes, I wonder what my only son did against Israel [for them to] kill him,” Umm Mamoun added.
Thirteen-year-old Mamoun Zuhdi al-Dam was killed on Wednesday, 20 June, during an Israeli attack on Gaza amid exchange of fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian resistance factions that left eight Palestinians dead.
At approximately 3pm, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at members of a Palestinian family who were having a picnic behind the campus of the University College of Applied Sciences in the southern Gaza City neighborhood of Tal al-Hawa. As a result, Mamoun al-Dam was killed.
His blind father, Muhammad Zuhdi al-Dam, 67, was wounded by shrapnel to the head and the neck. Three other children who were in a nearby field were also wounded, according to the weekly report from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.
He made tea for his parents
“One month ago, I inherited a small piece of land — about 220 square meters — from my family, and we were all so happy to own that land as my husband is an elderly retired man,” Umm Mamoun said. “Since we inherited that land, Mamoun used to go to it often to enjoy some time outdoors.”
On the day he was killed, his mother said, Mamoun went to the piece of land in the Zaytoun neighborhood, just near the Ali Bin Abi Talib mosque, at about 9am. “I received a phone call from him later on to inform me that the situation was tense and that Israeli warplanes were buzzing overhead,” she said. “His father and I were scared for him and we went to join him.”
Mamoun, his mother said, used to read the Quran, and he led noon prayers that day on the family’s plot of land. The boy also prepared some tea for his parents, and then laid down to listen to news on his mobile phone.
“As he was listening to the newscast that moment, he told us that an Israeli warplane had fired a missile somewhere else,” she added.
Killed as he played football
“Then, Mamoun went to play with a football just close to us on the same land,” his mother recalled, surrounded by mourners. “Suddenly, we heard a loud explosion and pillars of smoke covered the place. I heard Mamoun screaming and saw him stained with blood, and his legs were badly injured. By then my relatives, who are our neighbors, came over to help us as his father was slightly injured too.”
“Mamoun was everything for me — a son, a brother, a sister and everything in my life,” his grief-stricken mother said, “I am the second wife of his father, and God had given me Mamoun to fill in my life.”
In tears, Umm Mamoun spoke of how her son would tell her, “I love you so much, mom. You are my dearest, I love you, I love you.”
“He used to fill my moments with joy”
Muhammad, Mamoun’s father and a retired trader, sat at a condolence ceremony in the Asqoula neighborhood of Gaza City, with his left hand bandaged due to his injuries from the same missile strike that killed his son.
As relatives and friends came to offer condolences, al-Dam lamented, “I do not know what to say, except may God take revenge on those who killed my son Mamoun.”
Al-Dam explained that his son used to look after him due to his lack of sight. “Mamoun, may he rest in peace, used to be very reliable, though he was only a child. He used to take me to the mosque for prayer, he used to bring whatever I need from nearby grocery stores, he used to fill my moments with joy.”
No resistance, no shooting
Al-Dam told The Electronic Intifada that the moment his son Mamoun was hit by the Israeli missile, there was no sign of Palestinian shooting or rocket fire in the area.
“The area where our new piece of land is located is far away from the Israeli border line and it is populated as well,” he said.
Mamoun’s maternal aunts on his mother’s side, Umm Mahmoud and Umm Ahmad Hassouna, recalled how cheerful, humorous and polite Mamoun was.
“One day I was very sad and visited my sister Umm Mamoun to feel better. Mamoun came over to me and said, aunty, I will tell you 15 jokes so that you will smile,” Umm Ahmad said as a little smile broke the grief on her face.
Mamoun’s niece, seven-year-old Abeer Zuhdi al-Dam, wanted to share her feelings too.
“We used to play together often. Sometimes he used to show me some pictures on his own computer, and we used to play many games including hide and seek. We hate Israel for killing him, we hate Israel for killing him,” she said.
“Like my son”
Mamoun’s elder brother, Zuhdi al-Dam, 42, received condolences alongside his father. “This is something that our faith obliges us to tolerate and take for granted, but the question is, why does Israel target such little children? Why?” Zuhdi al-Dam said. “Mamoun was like my son as the age difference between us is thirty years.”
“Why do those alleged world leaders assemble at the so-called United Nations Security Council? Rather, it is the No-Security Council,” Mamoun’s father remarked.
“When an Israeli is hurt, those alleged leaders rush to condemn or call for action, while our own children are being killed and no one even moves.”
Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.
Locals help the family salvage animal feed for the surviving livestock | Photo courtesy of Rosa Schiano
Saturday night Israeli F-16’s bombed civilian targets in several areas of the Gaza strip. One of these strikes killed a man and injured his son in the neighborhood of al-Zaytoon, south-east Gaza city. An F-16 dropped a bomb on a farm just before midnight.
The watchman of the farm, Abed Alkareem Alzaitooni, 71 years old, was killed. He was sitting in a steel shed next to the animal pen. His son, Mohammed Alzaitooni, 22 years old, was injured. He was bringing some food to his father. Most of the animals in the farm were killed and the equipment was damaged.
The owner of the farm lost about 20 cows, 30 sheep and most of the feed for the animals. The same farm was targeted was also during Cast Lead and then was rebuilt. The house near the farm was damnaged but luckily nobody was injured. The owner of the house told us: “I was lucky because 10 minutes before the bombing I was with Abed”.
At the scene we found 5-6 young men trying to salvage the feed an anything else they could. A jacket was placed on a cement column. It was the jacket of Abed. Some chickens walked on the rubble.
A chicken lay dead on the ground. A rooster walked over to her body and pushed at it as if was trying to encourage to move. From the rubble emerged the head of a sheep. There was a big crater in the ground from the bomb.
Photo courtesy of Rosa Schiano
Rubble is spread everywhere. The day after the airstrike we went to the mourning tent. Abed Kareem Zaytooni had 6 sons and 3 daughters. His family were natives of Jaffa. Abed spent the last 20 years of his life working as watchman. He returned home only one day per week.
He started to work in this farm 6 years ago. When he was young he worked as porter. His brother, Achmed, 73 years old, told us: “We grew up without our parents, our dad died before I can remember.
We came to Gaza directly form Jaffa. Our life started with suffering, we always tried to work anywhere we could. At the end
everyone had his family.”
We visited the son of Abed, Mohammed, 22 years old, in Shifa hospital. Mohammed worked on the same farm as his father, he fed the animals. He started to work there 4 years ago.
He always brought food to his father when he was at work. That night he wanted to replace him so his father could have a night off. After the bombing he searched for his father, he heard his father’s moaning. Then the moaning stopped. Ten minutes later the ambulance came.
Muhammad al Zaitoni, 22, rests in al Shifa Hospital | Photo courtesy of Rosa Schiano
Mohammed is still in the hospital while his wounds heal enough for him to go home. He suffers several broken ribs and a punctured lung. We asked him if had anything to say to the world. He said:
“For the Arab and Islamic people, they must wake up from their sleep. For the West, you have abandoned us to death”.
During that same night, the israeli F-16’s launched similar airstrikes in Rafah and Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza strip. One of these strike targeted an agricultural shed in al-Qarara village. The second airstrike targeted a vacant room in a house in al-Shouka village. The third airstrike targeted an open area in al-Shouka village.
Israel announced it had bombed military targets. The targets Israeli bombed were civilian targets. Gaza continues to live under the siege and under a sky full of warplanes. Gaza continues crying, it continues to mourn its dead.
Rosa Schiano is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
