Tag: Gaza - Page 122 - International Solidarity Movement

Bombing of Khuza’a facilities

26 March 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Khuza’a is a village located in the southern Gaza Strip, in the Khan Younis governorate, near the border with Israel. It is a quiet place inhabited mainly by farmers. On the night of March 21st a warehouse used by the local authority to maintain vehicles and materials needed to provide essential services to citizens was bombed and destroyed.

Near the entrance of the village in an area of about one durum the municipality had set up a garage for some vehicles serving the community and a storehouse of material. The roof was composed of simple steel plates and inside there were tractors, metal mesh, trucks that served the municipality, plastic tanks to store water (water is not always available, and therefore it is necessary to keep tanks) and metal tanks with wheels for transportation. The most important vehicle was the one for the transportation of black water. Khuza’a does not have a system for the centralized recycling of sewage, and every family has its own septic tank. When the septic tank fills up, the tank truck for black water arrives and takes away the sewage. In the basement of the warehouse there was a 94 meter deep well that provided water for irrigation. Around midnight between 21st and 22nd March the site was bombed by F16s, making much of the material useless and destroying the well.

“I do not understand – said the mayor – why the occupation army attacks this building: this place does not pose any danger to Israel, it is a place where equipment is maintained to provide services to citizens of the village. The material destroyed was necessary to safeguard the health of my fellow citizens, now without the black water tank truck, if sewage backs up, in the long run we risk the spread of disease.”

Adjacent to the bombed area there is the water tower, and the mosque. Only through luck they have not been damaged. Among the ruins it is possible to recognize games for children, particularly a yellow plastic slide and a small bike which no child will be able to ride any more. The walls are torn, the roof completely smashed, the vehicles rendered unfit for use, the stored material buried under the rubble. A pump for water and part of the roof have been hurled about twenty feet away. Losses are estimated by the municipality at a total of three hundred thousand dollars.

When the mayor was made aware of the declaration of the occupation forces that the place was considered to be a terrorist base, he replied: “No, really! This place is open all day and vehicles entering and leaving at all hours are visible to everyone. It is also clear to anyone observing the remains that the statements of Israel are false. The occupation forces are crazy: they do not know what to hit and then they hit this place to claim to have hit a goal and scored a victory. This place has nothing to do with what they call terrorism, and there are only civilians working here.”

The house of the family of Samir an-Najjar is adjacent to the bombed site. The bomb destroyed the shack where they kept four sheep killing them all, it also created cracks in some of the columns and supporting walls, and destroyed the septic tank. Half a day after being destroyed by the bomb the septic tank was filled with earth to create a passage in the midst of the debris to one of six children, shot in the head by a bullet during the Israeli attack Operation Cast Lead and confined to a wheelchair. During the night of the bombing the family needed to go to hospital where sedatives were administered to the daughter in shock. The night after the bombing the children were crying in their sleep and waking up with horrible nightmares. “The trauma caused to my children is unforgivable. Here there is only one well and a municipal warehouse for use by all people. Vehicles and equipment stored here are needed to provide services to all citizens.”

The barn of Shawqi An Najjar is also located adjacent to the bombed site, it housed four sheep who are now dead under the rubble, a herd of a hundred chickens and 25 other birds. The agricultural tools it housed are now unusable, even the water tank. The bike mentioned previously belonged to his son. “The occupation forces claim this was a base of Hamas, but it’s just a well and a warehouse, it is helpful to everyone, not just Hamas”

The same night, a drone missile was fired over the house of Mahmud Abu Hussein An Najjar, a few dozen meters away from the warehouse. Five minutes previously the occupation forces had phoned his son and ordered him to evacuate the house. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The same night, another site was bombed in the same governorate, in the municipality of Khan Younis, and two sites near Gaza, resulting in 18 hospitalizations.

Previously, on March 1st in a raid on the area just north of Khuza’a, Israeli bulldozers destroyed tens of dunums of land, and soldiers damaged homes with gunfire. Other smaller raids by occupation forces took place on Friday 19th and Saturday 20th, and since then shots are fired daily at this area of the border. There has also been shelling by the tanks that make incursions into the Palestinian territory.

Khuza’a suffered the worst atrocities during the terrorist attack of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, during which most of the population were forced to leave the village to go to safer places. During this time it was deliberately bombed and civilians were killed during the ceasefire. The area suffered from white phosphorus attacks and women were killed after being trapped in their houses for days when they tried to exit under the white flag.

Tell me, who is the terrorist?!

24 March 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Two days ago, on March 22nd 2011, the Israeli army attacked a populated area in the Al-Shejaija neighborhood, east of Gaza City. Four days after the murder of two children in Johr Al-Dik, the Israeli army once again killed civilians, amongst them two more children. The latest victims of Israel’s war crimes are Yasser A’ahid Al-Helo (15), Mohamed Jalal Al-Helo (10), Mohammed Shaber Harara (18) and Yasser Hamid Al-Helo (55).

At approximately 3 pm, Israeli tanks, positioned along the border, hit Al-Nazzaz street, 2 km from the border with four consecutive artillery shells. The first one hit Samer Walid Mushtaha’s house, destroying the upper floor. His wife, who was preparing dinner, had just gone downstairs and missed the attack by chance. The second shell hit vacant land nearby belonging to the Al-Helo family. The third one hit a group of children and older boys who were playing football near their houses, as they do every single day. 10 year old Mohamed Jalal Al-Helo and 19 year old Mohamed Saber Harara were immediately killed and their bodies brutally dismembered. Ten more children and an adult were also injured by shrapnel. Three year old Yasser A’amer Al-Helo and six year old Ahmad Talal Al-Helo are currently in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital with severe injuries.Yasser Hamed Al-Helo and his 15 year old grandson Yaser Ahed Al-Helo were opening the garage door to take out the car and rescue the wounded when they were hit by the fourth shell. They were killed on the spot.

This was the third attack on Al-Shejaija that day. At 10 am artillery fire injured one person and later in the morning another was reported to have been critically wounded by a drone strike.

Yesterday morning, Israeli military sources were quoted on Israeli radio as stating that one of the shells veered off and caused casualties. However, these four shells targeted a civilian area therefore civilian casualties were to be expected. According to witnesses, not one, but two different shells caused the deaths of these four civilians.

On Tuesday afternoon, the bodies of the four killed were brought to Shifa hospital in Gaza City in horrific conditions from the attacks. Ten year old Mohammed had been struck in the head by shrapnel, causing his skull to crack. Yesterday morning, an outraged and grief stricken crowd of people gathered at the morgue to carry the bodies to the mosque.

Today, the families set up mourning tents to allow friends and relatives to give their condolences. The outside of the houses are tattered with holes from the attack, while emotions boil over on the inside.

“Tell me, who’s the terrorist!? Who is killing innocent children? Who!? My little nephew’s head exploded! And many others are injured! Are you telling the world who the real terrorist is, are you?!” Um Tarreq yells at me, infuriated by grief, anger, fear and sadness. Her cries blow me away and I answer her rage with tears that are rolling down her cheeks also. She was the first one to lay eyes on the horrible scene of dead and injured children and is the mother of one of the nine children that has been injured. Her son is still hospitalized awaiting surgery on his arm. “They play football there every single afternoon, from 3 to 5, after school! What are they who kill children!?”

Next to her sits another family member, she yells and then cries when she starts talking about what is happening. “I have all young girls at home and they are so afraid. They already killed children, in broad daylight! Yesterday during the day and at night drones and Apaches were out. And now there is this big drone hoovering over the neighborhood, you saw it? How can I protect my daughters?”

Since the 2nd Intifada, seven people of the Al-Helo family have been killed by Israeli attacks. During Operation Cast Lead, tanks shelled a house, killing Foa’ad (55), his son Mohammed (25) and Mohammed’s two year old daughter Farrah. The bodies could only be evacuated after three days.

“I just wish you would tell the world we’re not terrorists. We’re just unlucky that we don’t have oil, otherwise the US would support the Palestinian cause for sure”, says Ra’aid Al-Helo, one of the family members.

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.

The pirates of the Mediterranean

5 March 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Government measures on the sea, even if they are illegal, are not an act of piracy, according to international law. The actions of the Israeli military are not likely to have been considered in the implementation of this law. The cousins Mustafa, 42, Mahmoud, 30, and Hjazi ElLaham, 27, were on the morning of the 19th February 2011, like every morning, fishing with their boat off the coast of Gaza. They were in the same area in which they are always located, 2.5 nautical miles from the coast, well inside the allowed zone. The Oslo agreement had assured the fishermen of Gaza bilaterally 20 nautical miles of fishing. Israel later unilaterally reduced this distance to 6 miles, and since the blockade was declared the fishermen are only allowed to fish within 3 nautical miles.

It was a stormy day, the cousins were almost alone on the sea. While the other fishermen had stayed at home because of the weather, the three couldn’t afford to lose a day of work. They were just pulling in their net, when an Israeli warship approached. The soldiers on the ship began to shoot at their net. The three fishermen began to work faster, they couldn’t risk to lose their net, and started the engine.

Until then, it was an ordinary day. “We are shot at by Israeli warships almost daily,” says Mustafa, the eldest, “we are used to that.”

Then they were ordered over loudspeakers to stop the engine, or the soldiers would shoot the captain’s hand. The three stopped the boat and pulled the motor out of the water. The Israeli warship began to circle around the small boat, so fast that they generated waves that made the fishing boat almost capsize. Next they were ordered to strip to their underwear and jump into the water. “We can’t swim,” they shouted to the soldiers. “You really can’t swim?” Hjazi grins. “Of course we can swim, we are fishermen. But what could we have done?” The answer they got was that they could either jump into the water and swim to the Israeli ship, or they would be shot at. So they jumped, one by one. Arriving at the soldiers, they were handcuffed and blindfolded, and ordered to kneel on the metal floor of the warship. They said they were freezing, that the plastic cords at their hands cut off the blood, but they were only told to be quiet. Their own boat was towed away by the Israeli one.

When they reached the port of Ashdod, and were taken from the ship, they finally got new clothes, and the blindfolds were taken away. A doctor came to have a look at them. Then a soldier came, who asked them if they had planned a suicide mission. A suicide mission? The three looked at each other dumbfounded. They had been arrested in the south of the Gaza Strip, near the border to Egypt, just opposite from the miles away border to Israel. “We were brought here almost naked, and you have our boat,” Mahmoud said finally. “Just search it, you will find nothing but fish and a net.”

They were then separately interrogated by the Shin Bet, the secret service. They weren’t asked about the attempted attack again, which apparently appeared ridiculous even to their interrogators. Instead, they were shown photos of their houses, their family and friends, recorded in detail by a drone. We know everything about you, this said. Then they had to describe the port, and the place where the naval police normally are. Mustafa, the eldest, was shown money. A lot of money. If he could imagine working with them, he was asked. Mustafa just shook his head.

After being locked in a cell for the rest of the day, they were brought to the Erez crossing around nine clock in the evening. They finally arrived at home, shoeless. Their family was beside themselves with worry. Because of the stormy sea, they had feared the three had an accident. One of the fathers of them had borrowed a boat to search for them, when he came close to the Egyptian border, an Egyptian warship sent him home. The soldiers asked him for his mobile phone number, they said they would call him if they found the boat.

The Israeli soldiers were less helpful. Before being sent back, the three cousins had asked them what would happen to their boat, and if they would get it back. “You will find it in Egypt,” answered one of the soldiers. “What does this mean?” Asked Mustafa. “It was just a joke,” he got as an answer. One of the other soldiers was in a good mood too. “We have the season in which we get the stuff, and you never get it back,” was his strange statement.

For Mustafa, Mahmoud and Hjazi this issue is less funny. The restriction to 3 nautical miles renders it impossible for them to earn enough to live from the boat, but the boat and the 3 miles are all that they have. “Every meter further outsides helps us to find more fish”, they say. And with that problem they are by far not alone. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, nearly 90% of Gaza’s 4000 fishermen are now considered either poor (with a monthly income of between 100 and 190 US dollars) or very poor (earning less than 100 dollars a month), up from 50% in 2008. In addition, they live in constant danger, even if they are within the 3 mile limit. Al Mazen Center for Human Rights states that between 1 May 2009 and 30 November 2010 the IOF carried out 53 attacks against fishermen: two men were killed, seven injured and 42 arrested, while 17 fishing boats were confiscated and one destroyed. Just last month there were three other cases in which fishermen were in exactly the same pattern kidnapped and then released again, without their boat.

A total of six families, for whose livelihood Mustafa, Mahmoud and Hjazi are responsible, depend on this boat. Six families now don’t know what to live from. What will they do now? How will they go on?
“We still hope that we may get the boat back at some point. We can’t afford to buy a new one. “Hjazi says. Then he laughs softly. “I also still have my breakfast eggs on the boat.”

Child and Father Abducted From Sea

23 March 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Four days. That is the time lapse between the attack on Yasser Nasser Bakr, who was shot in the abdomen by the Israeli Navy, and yesterday’s abduction at sea of his father and brother. At 6 am on March 20th, Nasser Bakr and his 15 year old son Alaam set out to fish in a small boat of 6.5 meters length, joined by three other hasaka’s. At 9 am a gunboat rapidly approached them and the four boats consequently started making way for Gaza’s harbor.

“Our boat is ridiculously slow though, it has a motor of only 8 horsepower. So, while the others managed to escape, we ended up on our own. They got to us and ordered us to stop. I answered that I was going home and continued heading back. Once again they ordered us to stop, but I continued to set sail towards the beach. It was only four days after they shot my son Yasser and I just didn’t want to obey them. That’s when they opened fire on us, leaving me with no choice but to stop.”

The story continues and is almost an exact copy of the stories of the Al-Laham, Al-Hissi and other members of the Bakr family. All of them are fishermen who have been abducted in the past months and whose boats remain confiscated.

Nasser and his son were forced to undress and jump into the water to swim towards the gunboat. Once in Ashdod, policemen asked them why they crossed the border.
“We have a GPS on board and we were only 2.7 nautical mile out!”

By 6 pm, Alaam and his father were brought to Erez, where the Israeli intelligence questioned them again. An aerial photo showed the details of Gaza’s port in which they showed a keen interest. “They wanted to know where the entrance is and where the authorities are located. After our evasive answers, they told us they would return our boat in the coming days.”

The last statement sounds like an evil joke: of all the hasaka’s that the Israeli Navy has confiscated, not a single one has returned to Gaza. The loss does not only affect the Bakr family, but also Mahmoud Abu Awedi, the owner of the boat. He lends his boat to the Bakr family when he is playing the drum at parties.

“When the blockade was at 12 nautical miles, our monthly income was at average 30,000 shekels a month. Now, we earn 300 shekels a month. It doesn’t bring in any money, but without fishing, I’d go crazy, the sea and the boats are my life.”

Alaam has been silently listening to his father’s account of yesterday’s events, and like any boy in puberty he claims not to have been afraid of the Israeli Navy. He has good reason to fear them though; on July 5th 2010, when he was just 14 years old, Alaam was shot twice in the abdomen by the Israeli Navy. He shows us the bullet wounds, with a shy boyish smile. “It’s healed reasonably well, but I’m less fit. I’m easily exhausted when walking for example and feel pain when I’ve been too active.”