Tag: Gaza - Page 19 - International Solidarity Movement

12 year old Palestinian killed in Bethlehem as violence explodes across the West Bank

5th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | West Bank, occupied Palestine

Abed al-Rahman Shadi Obeidallah, 12 was still in his school uniform when he was rushed in a civilian car to Beit Jala hospital from Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem today. The boy, from from a Al Kahder village, was shot in the heart during confrontations at Aida camp as violence explodes across the West Bank prompting the Red Crescent to declare a level 3 state of emergency across the occupied Palestinian territories. Another boy was shot in leg with live ammunition during the attack.

Abed al-Rahman Shadi Obeidallah, 12, just before being shot to death by Israeli forces in Bethlehem

Denouncing Israeli violations against humanitarian international law, the Palestine Red Crescent Society staff have endured 14 attacks on their emergency vehicles as Israeli forces and settler violence has sharply surged in a bloody three days. Attacks on PRCS have included medics being beaten by soldiers in Jerusalem, Israeli forces beating an ambulance crew with batons in the old city of Jerusalem and after one attack on an emergency crew in Jabal Al Taweel (Al-Bireh), two medics were injured. Israeli forces attacked an ambulance in al-Issawiya village in occupied East Jerusalem, before arresting an injured Palestinian who was being treated inside the ambulance. An ambulance windshield was also shattered by settlers in Burin village in Nablus. Burin underwent a frightening attack by settlers which left much of it in flames.

Reportedly 465 Palestinians have been injured thus far, including 28 shot with live ammunition and 68 injured with rubber coated steel bullets. Hundreds of others have been overcome by teargas that Israeli forces have been showering over villages and in cities where Palestinians have gathered to demonstrate against their murdering of several Palestinian youths since this past Saturday.

Young Palestinians martyrs recently murdered by Israeli forces.

Fadi Samir Mustafa Alloun, 19, from the East Jerusalem village of al-Issawiya, was shot to death by Israeli forces after allegedly attempting to stab a group of Israelis. 18-year-old Huthayfa Othman Suleiman was shot in the chest during clashes and died in the operating room. In a particularly heinous attack, Yousef Bayan al-Tabib, just six years old, was standing on the side of the road when a settler reportedly stopped his car, shot the child in the stomach, and fled the scene.

Across the occupied Palestinian territories, there have been reports of settlers slaughtering Palestinian’s sheep, attacking Palestinian cars with stones on roads and carrying out violent attacks on villages. As for Israeli forces, soldiers disguised as Palestinians assisting an injured Palestinian into a hospital in Ramallah, disabled security cameras and proceeded to arrest a Palestinian undergoing medical treatment. This is similar to other hospital raids in recent days where a variation of this tactic was repeated.

As for the Israeli government, Netanyahu today made an inflammatory statement to wage a “harsh offensive” against Palestinians; Zionist opportunism at its most typical. Collective punishment is the usual expectation when it comes to the illegally occupying force dealing with the civilian population whose land they are occupying. Israel launched three air strikes in the besieged Gaza strip targeting alleged Hamas ‘terror’ sites after two rockets were fired from Gaza, hitting nothing and injuring no one.

News reports of shootings, injuries, murders, arrests and raids continue to flood in as the situation unfolds at a lightning quick pace. For Palestinians enduring the brunt of Israeli incited race hatred and promoted retribution for the shooting of two Israeli settlers last week, the cavalierly imposed restrictions on al Aqsa Mosque, which have sparked outrage and violent confrontations- and the ensuing chaos, are yet another violent incursion into their lives.

The broken wheel of Israeli ‘justice.’ The case of Mahmoud Abujoad Frarjah

4th October 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Gaza, occupied Palestine

Sireen Frarjarh and her husband Mahmoud Abujoad Frarjah met eyes numerous times during this past Tuesday’s trial in an Ofer military court hearing. The trial was to determine if the young, newly married Palestinian man from the Deishah refugee camp in Bethlehem, would be held in detention until the conclusion of his court proceedings. The judgement, to continue Mahmoud’s detention was passed down by the blind eyes of the Israeli ‘justice’ system for an alleged crime over a year old.

Mahmoud and his wife Sireen, married just three months at the time of Mahmoud's arrest in Jordan by Israeli authorities. — Mahmoud and his wife Sireen, married just three months at the time of Mahmoud’s arrest in Jordan by Israeli authorities.

On September 9th, Mahmoud was arrested whilst traveling to Jordan on a family holiday. He was blindfolded and detained for 8 hours, during which he was denied water, food and toilet facilities. He was charged with throwing stones at a demonstration a year ago near Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem. Mahmoud had his initial hearing on Wednesday 16th September, which was then postponed until Sunday, September 20th. And although the judge ruled that Mahmoud should be released on September 29th, he subsequently refused his release.

The backdrop of this case is key. Minimization: Israel committed a human rights atrocity, an international law destroying massacre which claimed the lives of nearly 2,200 Palestinians, nearly a quarter of them innocent children during a military operation handily termed Protective Edge. (To date, no Israeli military or governmental personnel have sat in a courtroom, legs in chains, as were Mahmoud’s, and faced a judge for these heinous, reprehensible acts.) Maximization: Thanks to new legislation which perpetuates the critically and intentionally lopsided imbalance in Israeli courts for those on the wrong end of the class divide, Palestinian (alleged) stone throwers are more likely to face detention without bail until the end of their court proceedings. These regulations are applicable to Palestinian children as young as 12 years old.

Collective punishment was the overall tone of Military Judge Lt. Colonol Shmuel Keidar in his decision in this past Tuesday’s trial to accept the appeal of the military prosecution against the decision to release Mahmoud on bail, “With the security reality that to my sorrow exists in the area, I believe that the court can deviate from the micro-considerations regarding the defendant himself and yes to considerations of general deterrent, the touch considering the wide population in the area. Because of these things I believe it is not wrong to use the the reason of general deterrent straightaway or for detention and should express it as much as the situation needs. For all of these reasons I accept to keep him until the end of proceedings.”

The micro-considerations Keider is so cavalierly referring to here is that the alleged witness to the stone throwing was one man who was arrested and during interrogation gave twenty Palestinian’s names to investigators, Mahmoud’s being one of them. With such baseless evidence, the Keider is willing to continue Mahmoud’s imprisonment until the trial’s conclusion; likely a considerable amount of time.

The micro-considerations being that Mahmoud is of no security risk and is being held and tried on a basis so flimsy it wouldn’t get so much as a peek inside a courtroom in most places the globe over. In the end, Mahmoud is yet another young Palestinian who will fall under the weight of the broken wheel of the Israeli ‘justice’ system.

The fact alone that Israeli lawmakers can seriously argue for harsh sentence structures for Palestinian stone throwers, this is an act of resistance to an internationally noted criminal six decade military occupation, whilst silently they make space between each passing day and the dark hallway of massacre and subjugation left in their wake, is an utter absurdity.

In the end Mahmoud will possibly face the same road most Palestinians in Israeli courts face. In order to avoid languishing in Israeli prison for up to two years while court proceedings drag on to the punchline crescendo of a trial which ends, almost across the board, badly for every Palestinian enduring it- Mahmoud can plead guilty and take a deal giving him several months imprisonment. And it makes it that much easier the next time Mahmoud, or any Palestinian for that matter, is arrested to show a history of supposed criminal behavior with previous guilty pleas and sentences served.

The case of Mahmoud Abujoad Frarjah is another sounding of the death knell for any kind of justice being seen for the Palestinian people.

Sami Ali El Goga – The Story of a Gazan Fisherman

Sami Ali El Goga - fisherman who was attacked by the Israeli navy. — Sami Ali El Goga – fisherman who was attacked by the Israeli navy.

ISM Gaza met the fisherman Sami Ali El Goga, 36, who lost his hand and part of his arm the 12th March 2007, when he was attacked by the Israeli navy. In the same attack his boat was completely destroyed and his 13-year-old nephew, who was in the boat with him, sustained shrapnel wounds throughout his body.

Eight years later he is still waiting for the assistance promised by several international agencies, as he hasn’t been able to work since the attack, and without the boat a 20-member-family lost its source of income.

On that day, Sami and his nephew had just reached the 1.5 miles naval blockade when the zionist army approached and started shooting rockets towards them. They attempted to escape to the closest beach, as there was no chance to reach the port. Once on the beach the shooting didn’t stop. Whilst attempting to escape from the boat with his nephew, it was hit by a rocket and in the explosion Sami was severely injured. He nearly bled to death waiting for medical assistance as the Israeli navy prevented any recue from reaching him until 30 minutes later.

After 3 hospitals in Gaza weren’t able to treat him the Palestinian Authority mediated in order that he could be treated in a Hospital in the ‘48 territories (AKA Israel), as the occupation had previously refused to allow him to exit Gaza. The doctors there amputated his hand and afterwards he was taken by the zionist intelligence for an interrogation before sending him back to Gaza.

This wasn’t the first attack Sami suffered, as another boat from his family had been stolen by the occupation in the past.

The fog of war: remembering Muhammad al-Durrah

30th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Al-Khalil team | Gaza, occupied Palestine

Chaos in the streets of Gaza. Israeli forces showered the strip with gunfire while Palestinian medics ran frantically to evacuate those crumpled on the ground with blood rushing from holes in their bodies before racing for cover themselves. Running from the violent, precision Israeli military assault, some were felled in the act as lethal and non lethal projectiles met with their skin. …And behind a waist-high concrete cylinder a Palestinian father and his 12 year old son Muhammad took cover.

It is the second day of the second intifada and it was fifteen years ago today.

The spark of the furious uprising was lit by then Israeli opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, after visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Violence saturated Jerusalem, soon racing through the West Bank and Gaza. A second mass uprising, an intensified Palestinian resistance to Israel’s criminal subjugation of them. Four and a half years of shaking off.

Photo of Mohammed hiding behind his father Photo credit: France 2 — Photo of Mohammed hiding behind his father
Photo credit: France 2

If any image were to encapsulate the tragedies of what was termed in the report following the incident, where Israel issued an apology for the boy’s murder, describing it as a ‘fog of war,’ it would be a young Palestinian boy and his father kneeling on the ground, eyes wide in terror just seconds before the unthinkable happened. Filmed by Talal Abu Rahma, a Palestinian cameraman freelancing for France 2, Jamal al-Durrah and his 12-year-old son Muhammad are seen, backs pressed against the wall, Jamal’s arm shielding his young son whose mouth is oval with what must have been a paralyzing fear. And then the shots.

When the cloud of dust cleared, the boy is on his side, draped over his father’s lap.

Throughout an enduing four and a half year widespread Palestinian resistance, with all of its gut wrenching failures, and with the solace and strengths of solidarity en masse coming from both the history before the second intifada and the aftermath in its’s wake, the slaughter of Muhammad al-Durrah continues to be a defining moment. A young boy viewed guilty through the eyes of the Israeli military due only to the origin of his birth.

In the investigation to follow, an Israeli-initiated tug of war of blame across the grave of and over Muhammad’s murder ensued. Where initially the Israeli government took blame and expressed public relational regret with an apology, that space soon became occupied with denials, accusations and disturbing tales of Palestinian’s faking the boy’s death. If only Palestinians weren’t so busy mourning the actual mass murders of their children in order to be able to spontaneously arrange for the staged murder of one, a second intifada might not have been necessary, nor a third or a fourth for that matter.

Without politicizing the end of a human life, in a 67 year crime drenched in politics; fifteen years ago today a terrified little boy was shot to death while he hid beside his father. And the world should remember his name.

Warning graphic content! Raw footage of Mohammed ad-Durrah’s final moments of his life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arRgkXDLwlM&w=420&h=315

In Gaza no figures can express the sorrow

26th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestine

If there is any reason for our existence, at least it should be our capacity to inform about a story while it is happening, in a way that nobody can say: “We did not know, nobody had told us anything”

Robert Fisk

I don’t know if pain can destroy or fortify, I only know that pain changes everything. I also know that the recollection of such suffering shall remain, has to remain in my memory. At the beginning of the Israeli aggression, the first days of last July, I had promised myself not to forget the names of the children that were killed, those who I photographed horrified in the nightmare’s morgues in Gaza under fire.

In that moment I didn’t know that it would be impossible to keep that promise. More than 500 names of children, destroyed by bombs should be now pronounced by my voice, one by one. However, I do not forget, I can not nor want to forget.

The crimes and brutality do not deserve forgetfulness nor forgiveness, only rage. An unmitigated rage that drives us to act, to fight to prevent that their murders go unpunished, so that death won’t be in vain, even though the death of children always is. They are gone, we cannot bring them back to life, but we can, have to punish their executioners.

It is 10 am and several drone’s fire impact onto a house in Deir Al Balah while a Bulldozer recovers the remains of a family, buried under a one-ton bomb dropped by a F-16, those that leave craters, smoke and smell of death, where before were homes, affections, dreams, lives.

Bodies of children killed in Israeli attack on Gaza last year

The ambulance fills with wounded persons in seconds, a man enters carrying a small body of a child about six or seven years old, the boy lacks the right calf, his foot is hanging from a tendon or a shred of skin, I don’t know, I don’t want to look, but I do.

The boy squirms and his intestines are out of his belly, I help the man to lay down the child on the floor of the ambulance – the only stretcher is already occupied by another injured person. The ambulance drives fast to the Al-Aqsa Hospital, located in the central area of the Strip, the same hospital that has been attacked by Israel leaving seven dead and over seventy injured.

At each turn the child’s blood is spilled on the floor of the ambulance, I put my hand over his eyes to prevent him seeing his own intestines, I don’t want to see them either, or step on his blood; I don’t want to see his father mourn and cry in despair. But who cares about what I want? What his father wants? With all the impotence of his anguish, with all the force of his love, everything is banal, useless, tiny compared to death.

Boy wounded by Israeli forces during last year's attack on Gaza on the ambulance floor — Boy wounded by Israeli forces during last year’s attack on Gaza on the ambulance floor

The murderers do not care about anything nor the world. For Israel it is easy to kill, Israel is massacring children for free.

A man in the ambulance asks, demands the father to pray, and then they start to pray together, everybody who can articulate a word inside the crowded vehicle prays, I don’t do it, I don’t know how, I just hold his light head of shaved hair in my hand with the other I still cover his eyes.

I look at him and strange details are recorded in my mind, terrible and tender ones. His little face is beautiful despite the agony that deforms his face. I think he has his hand clenched into a fist because of the pain then I look again and it is not a fist – the Israeli bomb has torn all his fingers and the little bones are now protruding from his knuckles, they are fragile, white and thin, like those of a bird.

The boy stops squirming slowly and his lips turn pale, I’m relieved that he is no longer struggling, that his intestines stop escaping from his belly, I’m relieved by this calm so close to the end, it relieves me so much that I feel guilty. Till this day I do not know his name, I only know that he died minutes after arriving at the hospital.

“On the ruins of my house I hoisted the Palestinian flag, it is our symbol of resistance,” tells me Ahmed without any drama and then smiles, “now my family lives in a crowded shelter in a school”.

Less than a block away, in Beit Hanoun, seven little girls are sitting on a rickety mattress under a makeshift tent, here called “Jaima”, located next to some rubble that once was their home. Through an unstable triangle of collapsing walls the girls enter into this concrete tomb to retrieve a doll, rescued from an abyss of desolation and then smile.

The joy, that bombproof joy, I think amazed, resists death in Palestine, and sometimes just sometimes wins the battle, and if it doesn’t win at least dignifies it, dignifies and saves it from brutality and impunity.

More than 100.000 people have lost their homes under the Israeli bombs that devastated Gaza during the fifty one days of cowardly attacks.

Shelling from F-16s, Apache helicopters, drones, tanks, mortars and all the machinery of war they have – thanks to the support of the so called western democracies – the occupying entity sadly known as Israel uses machinery of war that allowed them to raze entire neighborhoods from the infamous distance of their powerful ships, but did not allow them to defeat the Palestinian resistance in the field, in a man to man combat because that requires that there were men on both sides. The courage and love for the land cannot be purchased with US Dollars in the arms market.

Zionist aggression caused a real slaughter, the almost 70 years of Israeli occupation still remains and it will continue causing damages and death mainly among women, youth and children, as Israel’s military objectives are always homes, mosques, schools used as shelters, ambulances. That’s where those perish who had previously survived the cowardly brutality of Israel, to die after, to continue dying a thousand times in this slaughterhouse called Gaza.

The numbers speak for themselves but today I cannot contain human suffering into figures. Sorrow is not measurable, sorrow is just that and it is everything.