28 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Mahmoud Mousa Mohammed Al Sirsik, age 19
This morning Mahmoud Mousa Mohammed Al Sirsik, aged 19, was going about his daily business, collecting stones with his horse cart in the border area, east of Gaza City, when Israeli army jeeps entered the area. Seeing the danger approaching, Mahmoud tried to run away, but found himself immobilized as the army trapped him in a rain of bullets to his left and right. One bullet hit a nearby object; a piece of shrapnel bounced back and pierced the young man’s nostril. The injured Mahmoud managed to hide for half-an-hour while the shooting from the jeeps continued and were even reinforced by a tank crossing into Gaza.
“I was sure they were going to arrest me. The tank kept moving in on me– it came as close as 20 meters. At that point I felt I had nothing to lose anymore, so I ran away as fast as I could. Bullets were still passing me by at both sides; it’s impossible to say how many they fired in total,” states an overwhelmed Mahmoud.
One of his relatives interrupts him sternly: “I heard it! It must have been close to a hundred! They wanted to kill him.”
The Al Sarsik family of 16 is dependent on Mahmoud and his brother to provide income by collecting rubble. Terrorized by today’s events, Mahmoud claims he will not take up work as a scrap collector ever again. He hopes to find another job, but it is Gaza’s scarce job opportunities that drive people into despair and force them to take up this kind of hazardous work.
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 1000-1500 meters. The total area amounts to 35% of Gaza’s arable land. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, more than 84 workers have been injured and ten have been killed by the Israeli military since January 2010.
28 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
A demonstration commemorating the beginning of “Operation Cast Lead” was held Tuesday in the Gazan city of Beit Hanoun. Families of victims were in attendance, as were 5 International Solidarity Movement activists. Two years have passed since the Israeli attacks on Gaza, which killed over 1400 people in just 23 days. The vast majority of victims were civilians, including 350 children, according to the United Nations and other major human rights organizations.
The Local Initiative demonstration began at the railway street in Beit Hanoun, near some of the most horrendous attacks which occurred during the land, air and sea bombardment of Gaza. The group of around 40 continued into the ‘buffer zone’ to within 100m of the Israeli border, holding flags and photos of children killed two years ago. During the 23-day attack, none of Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants (including 800,000 children) were safe.
Beit Hanoun was not spared this horror, and stories from the attacks continue to haunt survivors. Abed Hamdan carried a banner with pictures of his youngest brother and two youngest sisters, Ismail (9), Haia (12) and Lama (4). While marching towards the border, demonstrators stopped at an intersection with al-Seka Street. At approximately 7:45am on 30 December 2008, Haia, Ismail and Lama were taking rubbish to this intersection when they were hit by two missiles launched from an F16 fighter jet. According to the children’s uncle, their bodies were found in three different locations, each about 50 meters away from where the missiles hit. Relatives ran with Lama and Haias’ bodies to Beit Hanoun Hospital, but the girls had died at the scene. Ismail sustained shrapnel wounds to his abdomen and chest, and had several broken bones. He died the following day in Al Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City. According to witnesses, the Hamdan children had been directly targeted by the Israeli, US-made F16 jet.
demonstration in Beit Hanoun
Lama carried after attack
Abed with Lama
The demonstration passed a collapsed building, where a father described being the lone survivor from his family after the building was bombed. The group then proceeded into the ‘buffer zone’, the strip of land along the Israeli border where attacks continue, injuring and killing countless farmers and rubble-collectors and depriving many of their livelihoods.[1] Demonstrators gathered in the ‘zone’ for speeches, under surveillance from the Erez Crossing watchtowers where Israeli snipers frequently shoot at demonstrators.
Local Initiative co-ordinator Saber Al Zaaneen spoke about the devastation still felt two years after the Israeli military’s attacks. “We’re here to reject the Israeli-imposed ‘buffer-zone’ that takes away so much of our farmland, and in defiance of the 23-day Zionist aggression 2 years ago, horrors once again visited upon us the Palestinians of Gaza, told to the world by the United Nations Goldstone Report.[2] The burning and bleeding under the rubble of the killing from the air, land and sea will never beat us. Long live Palestine, our steadfastness is strengthened by the memory or our loved ones, the hundreds of children murdered while the world watched on their television screens. We emphasize our legitimate right to resist occupation, and use all methods of struggle and fight until the end of Israel’s inhuman siege and bring our eventual liberation.”
International Solidarity Movement activist Adie Mormech expressed the urgency required for the international community and solidarity movements to act.
“The world is now aware of these well-documented crimes against humanity, the massacres, occupation, ethnic cleansing and siege of the Palestinian territories – all collective punishment[3] and serious violations of the 4th Geneva Convention. We cannot stand for this. We cannot allow Lama, Ismail and Haia to die with no justice to them or their family, or the families of the 1400 others massacred in the Israeli attacks. So where is the action? Where is the compensation? Where are the peacekeepers? Where are the sanctions on Israel? How many will they kill the next time, perhaps soon, if nothing is done about the 4 year medieval siege of Gaza or the murder of hundreds of Palestinian children? It is up to international civil society to do all they can and to boycott, divest and sanction from the Israeli Apartheid regime.”
The demonstrators returned to Beit Hanoun, with talk of more violence ahead and the prospects of another impending Israeli assault on the Gaza. Israel’s blockade of Gaza continues unabated, despite being denounced by the European Union, The Red Cross and all major human rights groups as collective punishment, illegal according to article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention.
On 2nd December 2010, 22 international organizations including Amnesty International, Oxfam, Save the Children, Christian Aid, and Medical Aid for Palestinians produced the report Dashed Hopes, Continuation of the Gaza Blockade[4] stating that there had been no material change to the devastating effects of the siege, and calling for international pressure on Israel to unconditionally lift the blockade.
The Hamdan family remains in ruins from the loss of their 3 youngest children. When their father, Talal Hamdan, spoke of their deaths in his home, there was still a quiet disbelief in his voice at what had happened to them. The family’s sorrow is unending.
“We’re just a simple Palestinian family”, Talal said, sitting in the garden of his home which is two kilometers from the ‘buffer zone’. Before the war, he and his wife spent their evenings watching the children playing in the garden, in the spot where he sat. “There is no life anymore. The children are now usually nervous, argue a lot, my eldest son has given up work and my other son Abed has stopped bodybuilding for which he used to train for competitions.” The family finds it impossible to deal with the terrible loss. “Haja was such a smart girl,” her father remembers. “She was the first in her class, danced dabka, and was able to read the whole Qur’an.” For his remaining four daughters and two sons, a small sum of money initially came from the Palestinian government. One of his daughters received psychological help from Doctors without Borders. The help only lasted two months however, and only reached on of an entire community stricken with grief.
Talal and his wife continue to sit in front of their house in the evening, watching their garden. However their world is now very different, like many others in Palestine. When asked if he had a message for the world, Talal shook his head. “I just want people to know that they were innocent children being killed, who never did anything wrong in their lives”.
24 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Yesterday morning Salama Abu Hashish, 20 years, was herding his sheep and goats in Beit Lahya, in northern Gaza, when the Israeli Occupation Forces shot him without any warning. The bullet hit his back and went straight through one of his kidneys. He had surgery and was in the intensive care unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital, where he died at 5.30 pm. The IOF has not only taken a life away from the Abu Hashish family; it widowed a young woman and orphaned a baby that was only born the previous evening. Salama Abu Hashish had just become a father, but has not even been able to name his first born. Three more workers were injured in northern Gaza by Israeli bullets yesterday.
Yesterday’s attacks come amidst an escalating Israeli assault on workers in the border area: in the past five weeks alone, 40 people have been injured in the buffer zone, an Israeli military-declared no-go zone that runs along the Gazan side of the border in a swathe 300 to 500 meters wide. However, according to the United Nations, the “high risk” zone stretches up to 1000-1500 meters. The total area amounts to 35% of Gaza’s arable land. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, 84 workers have been injured and nine have been killed by the Israeli military since January 2010. Salama Abu Hashish is the tenth victim of Israel’s war on the border area in this year alone.
Riad Abu Hashish, the victim’s uncle, says that Salama regularly took his sheep and goats to the northern border area to graze. Yesterday, he was approximately 150 to 200 meters from the border when he was hit by an IOF sniper. As ambulances cannot reach the buffer zone without Israeli coordination, nearby scrap collectors carried Salama away on their donkey cart.
“This is all because of the occupation and the poverty it has brought to Gaza! He only risked going to the dangerous buffer zone, because there are no other possibilities for feeding his animals”, said Riad Abu Hashish in shock.
ISM Gaza calls for an immediate end of the shooting of innocent civilians, driven to such work by the illegal blockade and urges the international community to pressure Israel to end these attacks.
11 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
Nidal Hasan El Najar, age 16The Israeli Offensive Forces are cracking down on people working in the buffer zone. In the past two weeks 20 people have been shot, four of whom were children. Today the atrocities continued: this morning three people were injured in Beit Lahiya; in Khuza’a, near Khan Younis, the army shot a child of 16.
Early this morning Nidal Hasan El Najar, age 16, set out to work with his two brothers and grandmother in the family’s bean field, which is in the border area. At approximately 7 am, a military jeep approached and quickly pulled over for a soldier to jump out and shoot Nidal in the upper leg. The jeep then just took off again. No warning shots were fired.
The boy was taken to Europa hospital in Khan Younis where he underwent surgery for a commuted bone fracture. At the time ISM volunteers visited him, Nidal was regaining consciousness from surgery while his family stood by with worry. One of his uncles exclaimed in disbelief: “Every day, every day! Every day things like this happen.”
The family owns 9 dunams, or 9 square km, of land in Khuza’a, stretching close to the south east border of the Strip. The family lives off the farming land they have there and previously had no problems with the Israeli army. This attack comes unexpected, but seems to be part of Israel’s crackdown on any presence in the border area. Israel has declared 300 meters from the fence to be a no-go-zone and does not hesitate to fire at anyone in or nearing this zone.
Air strikes by Israeli warplanes at dawn on Thursday caused serious damage to the Gaza Strip’s only power plant, plunging the territory — which already suffers from frequent outages — into darkness.
Media reports said the air strikes hit two sites belonging to Hamas near the Gaza power plant in Moghraqa village, central Gaza.
Engineer Darar Abu Sisi, director of operations for the Gaza plant, told The Electronic Intifada that at 2:47am an Israeli air attack on a Hamas site near the power plant scattered rocks and debris into the air. A rock crashed into the a current transformer and voltage transformer in a substation, causing the unit to shut down.
The damage forced the plant to reduce production from its usual 65 megawatts daily to about 35 megawatts, Abu Sisi said, far short of current needs. Unless the damage is repaired it may lead to even longer outages than the power cuts people in Gaza already live with.
“I believe that the Gaza power company has been able to coordinate with the Israeli side and we hope that this time they will be able to bring the needed spare part through Israeli land crossings, which are closed of course because of the Israeli siege,” Abu Sisi told The Electronic Intifada.
Even before Thursday’s bombing, Gaza residents face prolonged power outages of six to eight hours per day, adding to the severe hardships caused by the prolonged Israeli siege that prevents people and goods from moving freely in and out of Gaza. Abu Sisi estimated that the outages would increase to eight to ten hours per day.
The power shortages cripple daily life and the already devastated economy, and effect everything from students having no light to study, to households having no power for daily needs, and badly affect hospitals, sanitation and water supply systems.
Another effect is severe noise and air pollution from ubiquitous gasoline-powered generators that people use to cope with the shortages. In 2009 alone, 75 persons died in Gaza from hazardous handling of generators.
In 2006, Israel bombed and severely damaged the power plant’s three turbines which supplies about a third of the electricity used by Gaza’s 1.5 million residents. Since the 2006 bombing, Israel has further crippled electricity supplies by severely limiting the transfer of spare parts and fuel into Gaza.
According to the UN-commissioned Goldstone report into Israel’s winter 2008-09 attack on Gaza, approximately half of Gaza’s electricity supply came from Israel, seven percent from Egypt and a third from the Gaza power plant, leaving a deficit of about eight percent. The electricity deficit reached up to 41 percent at times due to Israeli fuel restrictions, according to other UN sources cited by the Goldstone report.
With no end in sight to the Israeli siege, Thursday’s bombing has just made the lives of Gaza’s population, half of them children, even darker as the longest nights of winter approach.
Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.
