An injured man in carried to an ambulance - Photo: TILDE DE WANDEL
At around 11:30pm last night (Friday 30 July 2010), ‘The Arafat Compound’ Police College in central Gaza City was bombed by Israeli F-16s, in the area of ‘Al Montada’ injuring seventeen people, three of them seriously. Three children were also among the injured.
Those first at the scene described building debris scattered everywhere and burned out cars still parked on the street. One man had severe injuries to the eyes and head as a result of being hit by shrapnel from the bomb.
The enormous impact of the bomb was felt by ISM volunteers sitting in a nearby café.
Adie Mormech, a British volunteer in Gaza with ISM said: “The blast caused buildings far from the epicenter of the explosion to shake and windows were smashed. When we arrived at Shifa hospital the scene was chaos. Family members were not allowed inside to visit while the patients were being treated. Intermittently more of the injured arrived amidst a mass of waiting media.
A father carries his injured child to a hospital bed - Photo: TILDE DE WANDEL
“Others arrived at the hospital with psychological trauma caused by the enormous impact of the bomb – some were confused to the extent that they couldn’t describe whether they had an injury or not.”
One Gazan resident described the power of the bomb as a rocket weighing more than a ton, the likes of which had not been seen frequently since the horrific three week bombardment over the New Year of 2009, known as Operation Cast Lead.
For many in Gaza, last night’s attack was a traumatic reminder of the onslaught during Operation Cast Lead when three hundred F-16 bomb attacks took place during the first 2 minutes of the campaign. The operations terrorized the entire population of the Gaza Strip and killed over 1400 people, including over 400 children.
Israel’s attack late Friday night followed a rocket that landed in Askelon, Southern Israel. that caused no injuries, and is suspected to have been fired by a small militant faction in Gaza.
As well as reports of other bombings near the Gaza City port there were also rocket attacks on Deir el Belah and Rafah.
Journalists killed by Israel while reporting in Gaza were remembered at an award ceremony in Gaza City yesterday; family members and co-workers received a plaque in their honour.
Abu Walid Mahmoud Al-Zaq of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF), the group organising the event – on their 43rd anniversary – presented awards in memory of ten journalists.
One of those was James Miller, a British documentary-maker killed in Gaza in May 2003, whose award was accepted on his behalf by current members of the International Solidarity Movement working in Gaza.
One Palestinian journalist honoured was Fadel Shana’a, killed along with eight other noncombatants, by a flechette shell fired by an Israeli tank, clearly seen by Fadel’s own footage of the shell being fired before he was killed a few seconds later.
After the first missile that killed Fadel, the clearly marked Reuters vehicle in which he had been travelling took a direct hit from a second tank, killing two children and another civilian close by, and injuring twelve others, including five children. Wafa Abu Mezyed, 25, a Reuters sound technician, was also injured.
On 13 August 2009 the IDF closed an investigation into Fadel Shana’a’s death, without taking disciplinary action against the tank crew that his own video clearly showed killing him.
Collecting the award on his behalf was cameraman and friend Sameer Al-Boje of Palmedia.. He expressed happiness that there were organisations showing appreciation for – and raising the profile of – the invaluable and often perilous work of journalists and cameramen in the occupied territories.
cameraman Sameer Al-Boje of Palmedia receiving the award in honour of Fadel Shana'a
When asked of the dangers he continues to face in Gaza he told us, “They don’t outweigh the importance of getting the real story out as to what is happening to the Palestinians.”
“When I entered this job, I knew that Israel doesn’t care about Palestinian journalists and that they would be happy to shoot them – there is no protection for the media here in Gaza because Israel does not want us to get this kind of news out.”
Sameer called on international organisations to do more to ensure safety for journalists in the course of their important work: “I feel its dangerous every time I go out there. We are not provided with any freedom of the press and media rights taken for granted in other countries. This is what we need if we are to continue sending out the real news of what’s happening in Gaza.”
Like the Palestinian Red Crescent, Palestinian journalists continue to be the first at the scene in the most dangerous times in Gaza, and so much of the footage the world sees is recorded by people well aware that they could become the next news story or grim statistic following the next Israeli attack in the continuous barrage.
A poster of Ihab Al-Wehadi killed 9th January during Operation Cast Lea
The full list of the journalists deservedly honoured at the ceremony
Hamza Shaheen, photojournalist for the Shihab News Agency, died December 2008.
Fadel Shana’a, a Reuters camerman, killed April 16th 2008.
Hassa Shaqora, killed March 2008.
James Miller, killed in Rafah on 2nd May 2003. Watch a video about his death here.
Ihab Al-Wehadi, (pictured right) cameraman for Palestine TV, killed with his wife and mother on 9th January 2009 during Operation Cast Lead when Israel shelled their apartment in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City.
Baraka Al Mugrabi was hit with shrapel, shattering his lower arm and causing a spinal injuryYesterday, Thursday the 27 May ’10, three people were wounded in the Zeytoun neighborhood of Gaza City which was bombed by the Israeli Apache helicopters and six farmers from the same area were wounded by the tank artillery fire while farming near the border.
This morning (Friday 28th), two ISM activists visited two of the wounded farmers in the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Baraka Mihammad AL Mugrabi, age 53 and Musa Ashad Badawi, age 28 are neighbors, and went to farm yesterday at 6 a.m. Because they have small plots of land they were quite near each other and a part of a larger group of about 30 people.
Baraka has 5 dunums of land and Musa 12, and they grow olives, apricots and other fruits as well as vegetables and some wheat.
Both of them are farmers with no other source of income and large numbers of people depend on their farming income. In Musa’s case, this includes over 20 members of his family including his parents and younger siblings.
Baraka supports a large family of 10 children, his parents and several older relatives.
Soon after they started farming, earth-to earth missiles fired at them from 10 Israeli tanks. “There were helicopters, drones, many army jeeps, 10 tanks and 10 bulldozers which later entered our land to level the mounds their artillery shells created”, said Baraka. “The firing was both heavy and sudden. About 25 artillery shells hit the area where we were and without any prior warning”.
According to Musa, farmers are shot at almost daily but this was the first time they fired from the tanks.
Artillery shrapnel hit Baraka’s lower arm, shattering the bone in several places and caused nerve damage. He also suffered a spinal injury in a fall following the wounding.
Musa Badawi's thigh bone was fractured, leaving a several-centimeter gap between bone fragmentsMusa’s thigh bone was broken, and the x-ray shows a large fracture with two parts of the bone several centimeters away from each other.
Both Baraka and Musa were in lots of pain following surgeries they had undergone yesterday and they were told that they would both have to spend at least six weeks in the hospital to ensure recovery.
Musa had no feeling in his leg and Baraka was worried that the nerve damage would leave him permanently without use of his arm.
Both will have to return to the place where they suffered shock and so much pain.
They have no choice; they are farmers and they have no other options. What preoccupies both of them already is the time they will be unable to work because of their injuries, and they are unsure how their families will manage financially.
Musa was told that his recovery will take a whole year and Baraka’ at least six months.
Gaza Buffer Zone Background
While unemployment levels hover near 42% in Gaza and 60% of its 1.5 million residents lack food security,¹ Israel’s illegal buffer zone greatly exacerbates the humanitarian crisis. 30% of Gaza’s arable farmland, and some of its most fertile, lies within the buffer zone.² Farmers who attempt to work in the zone face live fire and crop destruction. The number of crops grown in the zone has consequently been reduced from a diverse range to wheat and other less labor-intensive harvests, which further negatively impacts the nutrition and economic condition of Gazans. An additional 17% of farmland was destroyed in Israel’s war of aggression,³ making 47% (nearly half) of Gaza’s farmland now marginally usable.
The buffer zone has also reduced Gaza’s fishing zones to 1-3 miles offshore. In the first four months of 2010, 19 naval attacks led to two shootings and three arrests, as well as numerous confiscations of fishing equipment. The narrow fishing zone, in which over 3,600 fishermen work daily, is gravely over-fished.²
Israel’s decision to instate a 300-meter buffer zone is in violation of Oslo Accords, and people are routinely shot as far as two kilometers from the border. Israeli attacks in the buffer zone injured 50 persons and killed 14 between January and April 2010. In the past twelve months, at least 220 Israeli attacks have been carried out, with 116 coming since the beginning of 2010 (as of April 30th).²
In this series of personal testimonies, PCHR looks at the aftermath of Israel’s 23 day offensive on the Gaza Strip, and the ongoing impact it is having on the civilian population.
Mahmoud before and after the attack that claimed his sight
Mahmoud Mattar spent his 15th birthday in February this year, lying in the intensive care unit of Egypt’s Sheikh Zayid hospital. He is one of the 1,606 children who were injured during Israel’s military offensive on Gaza, some of who sustained horrific disabilities, head and spinal injuries, facial disfigurement, burns and amputation.
On Wednesday 7 January 2009, Mahmoud Mattar, then 14, was struck by a rocket near his home in Sheikh Radwan, Gaza City, that left him permanently blind and with extensive injuries. It was around 09:30 in the morning and Mahmoud was at home with his mother and siblings when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at al-Taqwa mosque, 150 metres away.
Mahmoud ran to see what had happened, and shortly afterwards a second missile hit the scene, killing two 15 year old boys, including Abdullah Juda, one of Mahmoud’s school friends. Mahmoud’s uncle, Nahed Mattar, 43, went to find his nephew while people gathered in the area.
Just as Nahed reached out to grab Mahmoud, a third rocket hit. “I had gone to find Mahmoud and bring him home,” said Nahed. “I saw the two boys who had been killed and their bodies were dismembered. People were trying to evacuate them because ambulances were unable to reach the area and the mosque had been destroyed, with just a minaret left standing.:
As Nahed reached out for Mahmoud’s hand, a rocket landed just a metre and a half away from his nephew: “I was injured in the head and Mahmoud was thrown unconscious. His face was in a terrible shape – it has only improved now after numerous operations – and there were shrapnel injuries all over his body.”
The last thing Mahmoud remembers that day was his uncle was beside him: “I told my uncle something was going to hit us. I couldn’t see the missile but I could feel something was going to happen. I made my ‘shahaadah’ [Muslim declaration of faith before death] and was about to take a step forward. I don’t remember anything after that.”
Mahmoud’s eyes were burnt, and his facial bones were fractured. His lower jaw was broken, he lost some of his teeth, and had shrapnel injuries and third degree burns throughout his body.
Mahmoud was transferred to Gaza City’s Shifa hospital where the seriousness of his condition meant transfer to hospital in Egypt was essential. But later that same day, 7 January 2009, an ambulance convoy belonging to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, was fired upon traveling south of Gaza City, so Mahmoud had to wait until the 10 of January before he could be transferred. In Egypt Mahmoud endured numerous operations to reconstruct his face and bone transplants. He also suffered lung damage due to smoke inhalation and his breathing is now laboured.
Mahmoud spent a total of three months and ten days in hospital in Egypt, including one month in the intensive care unit of Sheikh Zayid hospital, and two months in Cairo’s Palestine hospital. He returned to the Gaza Strip in late April 2009 and is now trying to adapt to his new circumstances. Mahmoud’s father is unemployed and has health problems and the school for the blind in Gaza normally only accepts younger children. His family is now trying to arrange special dispensation so Mahmoud can continue his education.
“Mahmoud was very active in school and loved sports”, says his mother Randa Mattar, aged 36. “He loved gymnastics, especially in the sea. My son is the same person he was before.”
“The only different thing with me is that life is blind now,” adds Mahmoud, as he playfights with his younger brothers. “Sounds are much louder to me now. Now if an ant walks by, I hear it.”
The prospect of lifelong care for severely injured children who survived Israeli attacks is too much to bear for Gazan families already vulnerable after two years of border closures, 42 years of military occupation, and rising poverty levels.
While some of the costs of Mahmoud’s hospitalization were covered by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, he needs more follow up care and support and the ability to travel for further treatment.
“Mahmoud also needs cosmetic surgery and to be fitted with glass eyes,” explains Nahed, who stayed with his nephew for the duration of his time in Egypt and has developed a very close bond with him. “We will have to find the money to pay for that ourselves, somehow.”
Mohammed Hiji and Ahmed Ishnayawra, both 14 years old according to medical sources, were killed in Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza city, on Saturday 21st of March by what is suspected to be Israeli ordinance, left unexploded after January’s invasion. Mohammed was in the store, where he was working to support his family, as his father is handicapped as a result of an accident that caused him the loss of his right hand.
Mohammed Hiji, killed by Israeli explosive
Ahmed brought the object to the store where it exploded causing the death of the two boys. Nobody else was in the store at the time of the explosion, so the details of the incident will never be known. What is sure is that Mohammed and Ahmed are two more innocent victims of a war that Israel has started and is refusing to cease. During the recent onslaught on Gaza alone, at least 313 children have been killed and 1,606 have been injured, according to the PCHR report, updated on the 19th of March
