The Israeli assault on Gaza at the end of December 2008 and into January 2009 was a tipping point for many with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For CODEPINK it no longer felt possible to sit on the sidelines and do nothing while white phosphorous bombs rained down on the people of Gaza — bombs paid for by American tax dollars. CODEPINK led several humanitarian delegations to Gaza, in March and June of 2009, where we witnessed the devastating wake of Operation Cast Lead, and saw the debilitating effects of a two-year blockade on the people of the Gaza Strip. We also went to Israel where we met with Palestinians and Israelis who were working for a just peace for both their peoples, and who invited us to join their struggle.
Decades of a so-called “peace process” have only resulted in further dispossession and oppression of Palestinians, both inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories: home demolitions in East Jerusalem, settlement expansion in the West Bank, the Annexation wall separating Palestinians from their land and from each other, and the terrorizing of Gazan fishermen and West Bank farmers. What recourse do we have as concerned citizens, whose tax dollars are subsidizing a brutal occupation and whose government blocks any meaningful international response to Israel’s flouting of international law? We have at our disposal the non-violent tool of boycott, which was successfully used during the Civil Rights Movement here in the United States and against the Apartheid Regime of South Africa.
In June of 2009 CODEPINK launched its Stolen Beauty boycott campaign against the Israeli cosmetics manufacturer Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories. We chose Ahava because, although it labels its products as “made in Israel,” its main manufacturing plant is located in an illegal settlement in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank; and its practice of excavating mud from the shores of the Dead Sea in the Occupied West Bank for use in its products is against international law. The settlements in the West Bank—all of which are illegal under international law—are an impediment to a just peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.
In September 2009, following the endorsement of CODEPINK’s Stolen Beauty Ahava boycott by the U.S. Campaign Against the Israeli Occupation, CODEPINK Women for Peace signed onto the official Palestinian Unified Call for Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions. In so doing, we join with hundreds of Palestinian civil society groups and many international organizations committed to pressuring Israel into adherence with international and human rights law.
There are few parks and green spaces in Gaza, and those that exist are crowded with people hungry for nature. Day and night, people of all ages flock to the Joondi, or the park of the Unknown Soldier, in central Gaza City.
Vendors set up, selling roasted nuts, falafels, cold drinks, tea and coffee. Further east, Gaza’s main garden park, charging one shekel (25 cents) admission, hosts some groomed shrubbery, decorative trees and flowers. It pales in comparison to arboretums elsewhere, but it is a bit of green in an otherwise grey Strip.
On Gaza’s main east-west street Omar Mukthar, the more upscale shopping area of Rimal attracts clothing, perfume, electronics and souvenir shoppers. The inventory is a sad collection of cheap fabrics and highly expensive electronics. Gazans have no other choice, save the tunnel markets in Rafah. But in the end, the majority of goods come via the same tunnels, and end up all being overly expensive.
Those with shekels to spend go to the few trendy coffee shops in Rimal or the Shifa hospital district. But the choices are basically the same: Arabic coffee, cappuccino, juices, light meals. And the entertainment is limited to use of the wireless internet, Arabic music played over the café’s loudspeakers, and chatting with friends, perhaps while smoking a water pipe.
Some choose these cafés to hold birthday celebrations to an Arabic rendition of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song. A cake costing on average 70 shekels is the highlight of the celebration.
But all this too is for the privileged few. Most of Gaza’s 1.5 million cannot afford frivolities like these, let alone consistent meals, diapers, baby milk, and school clothing and books.
For most Palestinians in Gaza, there is no escaping the constraints of a suffocating Israeli-imposed siege that, with the complicity of the Egyptian government and the international community, has tightened since June 2007 when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip. The siege goes further back from that time two years ago to shortly after Hamas was elected in early 2006. Since then, Palestinians have lived under increasingly choking restrictions on what can enter and leave Gaza.
In the Rimal shopping area, a growing number of Palestinians have resorted to begging. Among them are widows trying to provide for their children, and children themselves begging to contribute to family income.
An increasing presence of children selling one-shekel items dominates most Gaza city streets. The children, as young as seven or eight years old, spend their days enticing pedestrians or drivers at stoplights to buy their trinkets.
There are few recreation options for youths. No cinema, no concerts, no nightclubs, none of the pastimes that youths around the world enjoy. Partly this is due to the conservative culture in Gaza, but mostly it is the siege, and the many Israeli military attacks on Gaza. A venue for theatre, a wood- panelled stage at the Al-Quds hospital complex, was destroyed by fire from Israeli shelling during the three-week winter war on Gaza.
The primary obstacle in any case is financial: with extreme poverty levels among 90 percent of the population according to the September 2009 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCATD) report, the majority of Palestinians in Gaza depend on food aid, and scrape by on inadequate high-carbohydrate diets, with no extra money for luxuries like school clothes and books.
Ibrahim, Mahmoud and Mahdi, teenagers from Beit Hanoun, are still finishing their final year of high school, and have not reached the state of frustration many recent university graduates feel at the scarcity of work in Gaza. For them full-time employment worries are still some years off.
They spend their free time in a few simple ways: “We play football four or five times a week,” says Mahdi. “I go swimming nearly every day,” says Mahmoud, “but I’m always afraid because of the Israeli gunboats. They have shelled the beach before.”
Ibrahim points to a motorcycle parked nearby. “If we had money for one of those, we’d cruise the coastal road,” he says.
Otherwise, men (and some women) young and old indulge in water pipes and coffee, tea, or juice in the evenings, some choosing the relatively trendy cafes in Gaza city, others favouring a local coffee shop. Yet others flock to the sea, to enjoy night air and the breeze while smoking shisha.
Despite the dangers from Israeli gunboats and the severe contamination of Gaza’s sea – with upwards of 80 million litres of sewage dumped daily into the sea for want of adequate wastewater treatment plants – many choose to swim nonetheless. They have few other options for cooling off and for recreation.
“We installed a sort of diving board off the edge of the pier,” says a coastguard. “Every day we go swimming there.” Gaza port is one of the more polluted areas, with a combination of sewage and the usual boat oils and wastes found in marinas.
Gaza’s economy is decimated – 95 percent of industries have shut down. Fishers constantly face the threat of Israeli gunboats, and struggle to provide for their families. Merchants cannot import goods via Israel as they had done for years prior, instead bringing smuggled goods in via the tunnels.
Hamsa Al-Bateran, 22, presents the face of Gaza’s extreme poverty. Living in a single room with an asbestos ceiling with his wife Iman and their three- month-old son, he is now desperate.
Before his son was born, Al-Bateran scoured the streets of Gaza for recyclable plastics, loading his findings onto a horse cart. Sometimes people would hire his horse and cart to move large items.
“My son got ill. I had to sell the horse and cart so I could pay his hospital bills. Now I have no way of earning money.”
Al-Bateran is forever thinking of finding ways to survive. Recreation is a concept he doesn’t even consider.
“I even thought of working in the tunnels. I’ll do any job, I just need to earn money to feed my wife and baby, buy milk for him,” he said. He does not hold a Palestinian refugee card, and so is not eligible for the dry food aid that most refugees in Gaza receive. Without this and with no source of income, he depends on aid from his impoverished relatives.
For a recent university graduate, prospects are not good. Ahmed works in a small convenience shop in Beit Hanoun. “I work every day, from 8 am to 6 pm,” he says. “I get about 20 shekels a day.” This is the same amount most farm labourers receive, although some working in and near the buffer zone are paid more. But they face mortal danger under Israeli soldiers’ shoot-to- kill policy.
Mahfouz Kabariti, 51, has a decorations shop in Gaza city. “I used to import from China. My business is failing because of the restrictions on imports. Now I buy poor quality, expensive items brought through the tunnels.”
Like many, he feels there is little point opening early. “I used to open my shop at 8 am. But now, I open around 11 am and close early. It’s just my son and I working in the shop now. We had to let our employees go, there was no work for them.”
Said Al-Saedi, 50, has fished for over 30 years. “In the 1980s, we used to take the boat out for six or seven days before returning. We’d sail near Libya, to Port Said in Egypt. We could easily earn 20,000 per month,” he says. “Today, I don’t fish, I can’t fish.”
A leaked UN report has warned that Israel’s continued economic blockade of Gaza and lengthy delays in delivering humanitarian aid are “devastating livelihoods” and causing gradual “de-development”.
For more than two years, Gaza has been under severe Israeli restrictions, preventing all exports and confining imports to a limited supply of humanitarian goods.
Now, eight months after the end of the Gaza war, much reconstruction work is still to be done because materials are either delayed or banned from entering the strip.
The UN report, obtained by the Guardian, reveals the delays facing the delivery of even the most basic aid. On average, it takes 85 days to get shelter kits into Gaza, 68 days to deliver health and paediatric hygiene kits, and 39 days for household items such as bedding and kitchen utensils.
Among the many items delayed are notebooks and textbooks for children returning to school. As many as 120 truckloads of stationery were “stranded” in the West Bank and Israel due to “ongoing delays in approval”.
There were “continued difficulties” in importing English textbooks for grades four to nine – affecting 130,000 children – and material used to print textbooks for several subjects in grades one to nine.
Government schools were reported to lack paper and chalk, while the UN Relief and Works Agency, which supports Palestinian refugees and runs many schools in Gaza, was still waiting to import 4,000 desks and 5,000 chairs.
The UN says the current situation “contravenes” a UN security council resolution passed during the war in January, which called for “unimpeded provision and distribution” of humanitarian aid for Gaza.
“The result is a gradual process of de-development across all sectors, devastating livelihoods, increasing unemployment and resulting in increased aid dependency amongst the population,” says the report from the UN Office of the Humanitarian Co-ordinator.
According to UN statistics, around 70% of Gazans live on less than a dollar a day, 75% rely on food aid and 60% have no daily access to water. As many as 20,000 Palestinians are still displaced after the war, most living with relatives or renting apartments.
Among the most urgent needs is glass to repair shattered windows before the winter rains. Glass, along with other construction materials, is one of the many items banned by Israel from entering the strip. The UN also wanted to deliver agricultural products to reach farmers in time for their main planting season over the next few months. Industrial fuel was required for the power plant, along with bank notes for aid projects and salaries.
In June and July, there was a slight relaxation of the restrictions, allowing in small amounts of agricultural fertilizers, glass, aluminium, cattle and tools for repairing houses. Plastic pipes have been allowed in but only 69% of the water network that was damaged during the war has so far been repaired.
The UN said that, despite this “ad hoc” easing of the blockade, it found “no significant improvement in the quantity and scope of goods allowed into Gaza”. Imports are 80% down on the period before the blockade, and most of what does enter Gaza is from a narrow range of food and hygiene items.
Israel began putting restrictions on Gaza after Hamas won the Palestinian elections in early 2006, and imposed the blockade in June 2007 after the party seized control of the strip.
Egypt has also kept its border with Gaza largely closed, though growing quantities of goods, including fridges and even small cars, are smuggled in from Egypt through tunnels. The UN said the high cost of these goods meant that only wealthier Gazans benefitted, with “little trickle-down effect for the vast majority of the population”.
A spokesman for Israel’s co-ordinator of government activities in the territories did not respond to calls for comment yesterday. The Israeli military sends journalists near-daily text messages noting the number of delivery trucks scheduled to enter Gaza.
On most working days, between 70 and 100 trucks are due to cross – a number which aid agencies say is still well short of that required. The average flow of 9,500 trucks a month entering Gaza in late 2005 was also considered insufficient.
In July this year, only 2,231 trucks crossed the blockade.
On 15 September, we join farmers and residents, including a contingent of women, youths and men, in a non-violent walk to the border region east of Beit Hanoun in the north of Gaza, singing and chanting as they march past Israeli army razed fields and destroyed water tanks and cisterns. The march is in the tradition of popular resistance in Palestine, more widely known worldwide in the villages of Bil’in and Ni’lin, but equally practised all over occupied Palestine, including Gaza, in the simplest of acts: farming and accessing land which the Israeli authorities’ policies continue to attempt to render barren and void of Palestinian life.
[In the two well-known occupied West Bank regions, Bil’in and Ni’lin, the Israeli occupation army has ramped things up to such a violent suppression of non-violent voices that the April 17th killing of Bil’in villager, Basem Abu Rahme (29, strong, gentle, slain by an Israeli-soldier-shot, high-velocity tear gas canister to the chest from a close distance) , was the 18th murder of non-violent protesters against the separation Wall (11 of these murdered were under 18 years; 7 were 15 years old or under).]
The Beit Hanoun protesters’ message: for Israeli soldiers to stop targeting farmers, for Israeli authorities to end the (intentional) practice of driving Palestinian farmers off of their land. They call also for access to water, highlighting that in that region all but a single water source have been destroyed. This tank serves 40 dunams (1 dunam is 1,000 square metres) of farmland.
What has led these citizens to take up flags and placards? An on-going series of Israeli army targeted-shootings, tank and bulldozer invasions, destruction of farmland, and kidnapping of Palestinian civilians, rendering even the simple act of tending trees on farmland impossible or highly dangerous, risking injury or death from Israeli gunfire.
An exaggeration?
Since the end of Israel’s 23 day winter massacre of Gaza, another eight Palestinian civilians have been killed in the Strip’s border regions, including four minors (3 boys and 1 girl) and one mentally disabled adult. Another 28 Palestinians, including eight minors (7 boys, 1 girl) and 2 women, have been injured by Israeli shooting and shelling, including by the use of ‘flechette’ dart-bombs on civilian areas.
It’s an apt name and a struggle that goes back months, years, but gets almost no recognition in the international corporate media. Neither civilian deaths while farming, nor the steady non-violent resistance to Israeli land annexation seem to be sensational enough.
But while these Beit Hanoun civilians are unarmed, they are not naïve, not passive.
“Buhrrrah, wa dam, nafdiq ya Falasteen: Our soul and blood, we sacrifice for you Palestine,” they chant.
They tell us their first choice is to live and farm peacefully in their region near the border to Israel. But if it comes to it, they will die on their land, for their land, for their families, while farming.
They have little-to-no choice.
With Gaza’s borders firmly sealed shut under the internationally-complicit, Israeli-led and Egyptian-backed siege on Gaza, there is no option for emigration, no option for work in Israel or Egypt, no option to start up new businesses importing goods…
When considering these civilians and farmers, it is imperative to recognize that 95% of Gaza’s industry has been shut down by Israeli attacks and the siege. That roughly one third of Gaza’s farmland has been swallowed by a no-go, Israeli-imposed ‘buffer zone’ in which Israeli soldiers reserve the right to shoot-to-kill.
Roughly a decade ago, Israeli authorities unilaterally established an off-limits ‘buffer zone’ on the 150 metres of land extending along the Green Line border between Gaza and Israel. Since inception, the ‘buffer zone’ has swollen to over 1 km in the east and 2 km in the north (during and immediately after Israel’s 23 day massacre of Gaza in winter 2008/2009), to the present 300 metre off-limits area (heralded in May 2009 by the dropping of leaflets which stated:
“The Israeli Defence Forces repeat their alert forbidding the coming close to the border fence at a distance less than 300 metres. Who gets close will subject himself to danger whererby the IDF will take necessary procedures to drive him away which will include shooting when necessary.”
The ‘buffer zone’ swallows prime, fertile agricultural land, cutting off another means of self-sustenance in a Strip that has been under siege since after Hamas’ election in 2006.
International bodies, including the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the World Food Program (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO) note that between 35% to 60% of Gaza’s agricultural industry has been destroyed and rendered useless [from the winter Israeli massacre of Gaza and from various Israeli invasions, attacks, burning of crops, and the impact of the siege].
Whereas formerly Gaza production met half the Strip’s agricultural needs, the effects of attacks and siege on Gaza has devolved the agricultural sector to what the Gaza-based Agricultural Development Association of Gaza aptly cited as a “destruction of all means of life.”
We pass farmers on a donkey cart loaded with plastic jugs filled with water. They ask how they are supposed to water, let alone reach, the paltry few trees on their land near the ‘buffer zone’.
We continue walking, getting a close look at the heaps of rubble which were water tanks and wells. The march reaches a larger well, it’s covering now at a wounded 45 degree slant, the sweet water within off-limits to farmers and their trees.
While speeches are made, pledging to continue to farm, continue to non-violently resist this flagrant Israeli bullying and land-grab policy, some of the weathered farmers in the area approach, keen to share their miseries to those who would listen.
Salem As Saed is 59, has 4.5 dunams of land which once held orange and olive trees until occupational bulldozers ground them to the earth. He has 17 children who he is unable to support; they are all dependent on food-aid handouts.
Awad, (55) has 17 in family and no means of income. His land has been razed, water sources destroyed. Of the 93 dunams of trees he once had, the vast majority have been destroyed. Awad has planted new trees, but these are scant in number and failing from want of water.
He has a further 30 dunams closer to the border, which he cannot access, has not accessed in years. Two years ago, Awad was shot by Israeli soldiers in the area of the Israeli watch tower at the border. He says that he was working with his son some 500 metres from the fence when the Israeli soldiers began shooting without warning. He was hit by a bullet to his inner thigh; his son was abducted and imprisoned for 28 days.
The speeches end and demonstrators kneel, beginning to pray on their land.
The demonstration ends without incident, though the daily dangers remain once the cameras are gone.
As we walk back towards Beit Hanoun, we discuss some those recently assassinated and injured in the buffer zones at the hands of Israeli soldiers.
On the morning of 9 September, and also in the Beit Hanoun border region, Maysara al Kafarna, a 24 year old from Beit Hanoun, was shot in the foot by Israeli soldiers at the Green Line border between Gaza and Israel. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) notes that the youth was 350 metres from the border fence when targeted.
PCHR reports that a few hours later, at 10 am, Israeli soldiers invaded as deeply as 700 metres into areas north of Beit Hanoun, firing at homes and farmland.
Five days prior, Israeli soldiers shot dead a 14 year old boy, targeting him with a bullet to the head. PCHR reports that in the afternoon of 4 September Ghazi Al Zaneen and family were walking in the northeastern Beit Hanoun region to agricultural land they owned 500 metres from the border when –with no warning messages or warning shots –Israeli soldiers opened sustained fire at the family, the last bullets hitting the boy and the family car as the father evacuated his son. Critically injured, Ghazi died the following day.
On 2 September, according to PCHR, when Israeli occupation forces invaded 150 metres into northern Beit Hanoun, Palestinian resistance confronted the invasion, defending themselves against the occupiers’ invasion. In the firing that ensued, a 17 year old, ‘Abdul ‘Aziz al-Masri, living in the region was shot in the foot. Not farming, the youth was subject to danger due to the Israeli invasion.
A week prior to that, on 23 August, PCHR reports Israeli soldiers opened fire on areas to the east of Beit Hanoun, shooting 63 year old Fawzi Ali Wassem in the thigh. The farmer was on agricultural land 1,800 metres from the border.
The morbid list of ‘buffer zone’ fatalities and injuries continues in Beit Hanoun regions (and throughout the Gaza Strip):
-Saleh Mohammed al-Zummara, 66, injured by a gunshot to the left hand and ‘Ali Mohammed al-Zummara, 65, injured by shrapnel in the back from Israeli soldiers’ firing on 3 June, according to PCHR.
– Ziad Salem abu Hadayid, 23, is shot in the legs when Israeli soldiers shoot on Palestinian farmers on 20 May, according to the Al Mezan centre for Human Rights.
-We find Ahmed Abu Hashish’s decomposed body, missing since 21 April, is found shot dead, presumably by Israeli soldiers, in the eastern Beit Hanoun border region on 14 June. As we and Local Initiative volunteers search for then remove the body, we come under close and intense fire from the Israeli soldiers at the border. We are clearly, visibly unarmed; the shooting intesifies when the soldiers see that we have located the body. It is pure spite.
And this is without mentioning the equally brutal assaults on other regions along the ‘buffer zone’. Nor Israeli soldiers’ intentional arson of Palestinian crops. Nor mentioning the abductions of civilians –the latest, 5 minors from Beit Lahiya’s bedouin village region. Abducted on 6 September as they herded their sheep and goats, they are:
1. Mohammed ‘Arafat Abu Khousa, 17;
2. Sameh ‘Abdul Qader Abu Hashish, 15;
3. Fraih Qassem Abu Hashish, 12;
4. ‘Aa’ed Hazzaa’ Abu Hashish, 16; and
5. Ibrahim Shihda Abu Jarad, 17.
Look carefully at the faces in the above photos: these are the civilians facing the world’s fourth most powerful military. These are the people eeking a living or living in a region which has been arbitrarily cut off and assaulted by the state which purports to ‘defend itself’. Look carefully, and hope that they are not among the next to be martyred by Israeli assaults.
Interview with Dr. Qudeh from the “Brilliant Tomorrow For Homes Sons Society” about the destruction of East Khouzaa during the December 2008 – January 2009 Israeli onslaught on Gaza and the attempt of the Israeli occupation forces to establish a “buffer zone” by shooting live ammunition against farmers.
List of Palestinian farmers & other civilians shot in Gaza Strip’s rural communities since the declaration of the ceasefire on the 18th of January 2009
Several farmers and other Palestinian civilians have been shot by Israeli forces while in rural communities since the 18th of January 2009 when Israel declared a unilateral “ceasefire”. This list includes only confirmed cases of Palestinian civilians killed or injured by gunfire or (shrapnel of) artillery shells. It doesn’t include Palestinian civilians killed or injured by air strikes, previously unexploded Israeli ordinances, or injured while trying to escape from Israeli gunfire. It doesn’t include cases of casualties reported but not confirmed with their names [ 1, 2]
According to this list, 7 Palestinian civilians (among them 3 boys and 1 girl) have been assassinated and 28 others (among them 7 boys, 1 girl, 2 women) have been injured by IOF gunfire or shelling.
In this list we should probably add the case of Ahmed Abu Hashish who went missing on the 21st of April and his dead body was found on the 14th of June by a group formed by locals (including his father and activists of the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative) and ISM Gaza Strip activists that went under Israeli gunfire too. Ahmed Abu Hashish is believed to have been assassinated by IOF troops.
15 September 2009, Khan Younis: Fadi Odeh Abu Mu’ammar, 28
15 September 2009, Khan Younis: Muhammad Odeh Abu Mu’ammar, 26
9 September 2009, Beit Hanoun: Maysara Mohammed Hussein al-Kafarna, 24, wounded by a gunshot to the right foot.
4 September 2009, Beit Hanoun: Ghazi al-Za’anin, 14,was wounded by a bullet to the head and died the following morning.
2 September 2009, Beit Hanoun: 17-year-old ‘Abdul ‘Aziz al-Masri, was wounded by a gunshot to the right foot.
24 August 2009, Beit Lahia: Mas’oud Mohammed Tanboura, 19, was seriously wounded by several bullets to the chest
24 August 2009, Beit Lahia: Sa’id ‘Ata al-Hussumi, 16, was instantly killed by two bullets to the chest
23 August 2009, Beit Hanoun: Fawzi ‘Ali Qassem, 63, was wounded by a gunshot to the left thigh
22 August 2009, Sheikh Zayed, Beit Lahia: Murad Salman al-Wazir, 17, wounded by a gunshot to the left leg.
21 July 2009, Abassan: Majed Majdi al-Farra, 20, was wounded by shrapnel to the right hand
19 July 2009, east of Gaza city: Ahmed Zuhair al-Semari, 22, was hit by a gunshot that entered the abdomen and exited the back. Kidnapped, transferred to Israeli hospital where died.
15 July 2009, Abassan Jedida – Faraheen: Karem Hamdan Sarem Qudeh, 16, injured by shrapnel, above the eye
2 July 2009, Juhr Ad Dik: Husam Abu A’yesh, 24, was also injured by shrapnel
2 July 2009, Juhr Ad Dik: Hiam Abu A’yesh, 17, killed by Israeli shell
5 June 2009, Shoka, Rafah: Khaled Ismail Mohammed Jahjuh was shot in his lower spine
3 June 2009, Beit Hanoun: ‘Ali Mohammed al-Zummara, 65, injured by shrapnel in the back
3 June 2009, Beit Hanoun: Saleh Mohammed al-Zummara, 66, injured by a gunshot to the left hand
3 June 2009, Bedouin village ‘Um An-Nassir’: Ahmed Tawfiq Abu Hashish, 17, injured by shrapnel to the left shoulder and foot.
3 June 2009, Bedouin village ‘Um An-Nassir’: Saleh Ahmed al-Madani, 17, seriously injured by shrapnel to the neck and the left shoulder
20 May 2009, Beit Hanoun: Ziad Salem abu Hadayid, 23, was shot in his legs with live ammunition by Israeli forces.
7 May 2009, Rafah: Randa Shaloof, 32, was shot in her hand and chest with live ammunition by Israeli forces.
3 May 2009, Beit Hanoun: Mohamed Harb Shamia, 12, was injured in his leg and abducted by Israeli forces.
3 May 2009, East of Jabalya: 30-year-old Mona Selmi As-Sawarka was injured by shrapnel wounds to her chest
2 May 2009, Khoza’a: Nafith Abu T’eima, 35, injured in his neck by shrapnel from Israeli forces.
10 March 2009, al-Maghazi refugee camp: Muhannad Sehi Abu Mandil, 24, was shot in the left foot with live ammunition by Israeli forces.
24 February 2009, Khoza’a: Wafa Al Najar, 17, was shot in the kneecap with live ammuntion by Israeli forces.
18 February 2009, Al Faraheen: Mohammad al-Ibrim, 20, was shot in the right leg with live ammunition by Israeli forces.
14 February 2009, Jabaliya: Hammad Barrak Salem Silmiya, 13, was killed when Israeli forces shot him in the head with live ammunition.
27 January 2009, Al Faraheen: Anwar al Ibrim, 27, was killed when Israeli forces shot him in the neck with live ammunition.
27 January 2009, east of Deir Al Balah: Mohammed Salama al-Ma’ni, 21, was wounded by a gunshot to the left thigh.
25 January 2009, Khoza’a: Subhi Tafesh Qudaih, 55, was wounded by a gunshot to the back
23 January 2009, Khoza’a: Nabeel Ibrahim al-Najjar, 40, was wounded by shrapnel from a gunshot to the left hand by Israeli forces.
22 January 2009, Sheyjaiee: 7 year old Ahmed Hassanian shot in the head
20 January 2009, al-Qarara: Israeli soldiers shot Waleed al-Astal, 42, in his right foot.
18 January 2009, Khoza’a:Maher ‘Abdul ‘Azim Abu Rjaila, 23, was killed when Israeli forces shot him in the chest with live ammunition.
