19th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Khuzaa, Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestine
It only depends on us that this mother’s cry of pain does not drown in the silence.
“My paralyzed daughter was murdered by Israeli soldiers and I couldn’t save her” she told us, looking at us with clear eyes veiled with tears of pain, the other of a paraplegic girl, just 18 years old, massacred in her wheelchair by Zionist occupation forces during the ground invasion in Khuzaa, in southern Gaza Strip.
“My paralyzed daughter was murdered by Israeli soldiers and I couldn’t save her.”
The mother’s voice is like her eyes, clear and painful, sad and intense. In her tone there is much suffering – although she is a victim of the zionist atrocities – there is also a lot of guilt for failing to rescue her daughter from a terrible death under the fire of one of the most powerful armies of the planet: the Israeli Occupation Forces.
“My daughter asked me not to leave her, but she was in a crater formed by a bomb explosion in the middle of the street and I couldn’t move her from there, I didn’t have the strength to carry her in my arms, and the Israeli soldiers were coming back, shooting with tanks, guns, with everything. Crying I told her that I had to leave her and prayed to God.”
What happened next is so cruel and vicious as the crime itself: an officer of the Israeli forces communicated by telephone with the family to say the girl was with them in one of the houses that they had occupied n Khuzaa “Come and get her, she is unharmed”, said the officer. The family was so happy that one brother decided to leave the house where they were sheltering with the intention of picking up the girl, but when he opened the door, multiple shots from the occupation forces began to impact the house.
The Zionist’s macabre game is repeated, they call again to tell the family to look for the paralyzed teen and again they open fire when one of the brothers tries to leave the house to rescue his sister.
“This kind of inhuman mockery of Palestinians is common from the Israeli Army”, explain various witnesses of the Zionist crimes. Not content just to kill with impunity, they also like to torture their victims, tease them and laugh at the suffering of the families.”
It hurts, but is not surprising, knowing that she had never been safe in the hands of the occupying forces, she had been murdered in cold blood and she lies near her wheelchair with multiple gunshots in her limbs, heart and head, when she was found days later by her family in an advanced state of decomposition on the main street of the devastated village of Khuzaa, southern Gaza Strip, a place where life is worthless, where the slaughtering of Palestinians is a coward game without consequences for this criminal army.
8th September 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Khuzaa, Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestine
One year after Israel’s attacks in the Gaza Strip, the massacre in Khuzaa is vividly remembered by one of its inhabitants.
Dr Mohammed Qudaih lived with his family in Khuzaa, in the southern Gaza Strip, less than a kilometre away from the Israeli fence, the military turrets, and from the Palestinian land occupied in 1948.
Dr. Mohammad in his office. Photo by ISM
Mohammed, who is a surgeon, worked in his little clinic when the Israeli aggression started last July. He and his family decided to stay in Khuzaa despite the bombings were getting worse. “They raged specially over homes, schools, hospitals, ambulances… Israel’s favourite targets”.
Suddenly his tiny clinic was full of wounded people and neighbours, who believed that a health care centre would be a safe refuge against the one-ton bombs thrown by the F16 planes. Sadly they were wrong. Many of the wounded families were attacked again when the occupation forces launched the ground invasion with their powerful war machine, funded by the so-called “Western Democracies”.
Many villagers of Khuzaa, survivors from the horror of the first attack, wounded but able to survive, were killed when they were receiving medical treatment by Dr Mohammed. Both the office and Dr Mohammed’s house were crowded with hundreds of refugees and wounded people. Women’s hijabs were transformed under the snipers’ fire into bandages to stop the bleeding of children, women and wounded men. The kitchen table was quickly transformed into a surgery table, the windowless bathrooms in useless shelters against the barrage of bombs and gunshots.
Ahmed, the younger brother of Mohammed, who was only 22 years old, bled to death from a mortar while helping a woman in the clinic courtyard. 130 people were cowardly murdered by the occupying forces only in that area of Khuzaa. 520 more were wounded, mostly children and women, all of them severely injured, in face of the ruthless war weapons used by Israel against an unarmed and defenseless civilian population. More than 500 homes were completely razed in Khuzaa during the 51 days of the slaughter. But one year after Dr Mohammed clarifies “the massacre continues. Gaza is still blocked by land, sea and air, closed up tight. Where are the UN and the other agencies supposedly responsible for protecting human rights? Where are the International community and the Media? Where is the reconstruction? Where is our freedom? We won’t stop resisting as long as they keep oppressing us. We hope all these sacrifice will bring us our freedom…”.
Dr. Mohammed’s father holding the picture of his 22 year old martyred son, Ahmed and pointing to the exact place where he was murdered while trying to help a woman. Photo ISM
This Monday 24th of August, as every Monday, the families of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have gathered at the Red Cross headquarters in Gaza City. Tens of people joined them in order to show their support, denounce the conditions that the prisoners suffer and to demand the freedom of all the Palestinians kidnapped by the occupation.
In a new proof of its solidarity with the oppressed people of the world, the Palestinian former prisoners have shown its support to all the Anarchist prisoners jailed around the world, during the second “International Solidarity Week for Anarchist Prisoners”, 23-30 August 2015.
“International Solidarity Week for Anarchist Prisoners”
At the same time it took place at the UN headquarters in Gaza City a huge demonstration where the Union of workers of UNRWA demanded the Agency Commissioner-General to back down from its decision of reducing the number of teachers, increasing the number of students per class, stopping the recruitment of new staff and reducing the medical services to the refugees.
Demonstration in Gaza against the Agency Commissioner-General\s decision on less teachers and mre children in each class.
They also demanded the salaries owed to them and asked the UNRWA to reconsider its policies regarding the recruitment of foreign staff as it takes a disproportionate share of the UNRWA budget.
Demonstration in Gaza against the Agency Commissioner-General\s decision on less teachers and mre children in each class.
They also demanded the UN States to assume its commitment with the Palestinian refugees and to stop denying them their rights.
21st August 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | Occupied Palestine
Update 6th September:
We are making an urgent call for volunteers to come and join us to support Palestinians in their daily resistance towards the Israeli illegal occupation of their land.
Just this last Wednesday, a 75 year old woman was brutally attacked by Israeli soldiers as she tried to defend her son from being kidnapped, in the village of Salem. The same soldiers then attacked and kidnapped 8 shepherds from that area. The shepherds of Salem struggle everyday to access their fields and do their work, and they urgently need our help to accompany them and secure a safe environment to prevent the soldiers from harassing and attacking them.
Likewise, in the Jordan Valley, Palestinian bedouins are suffering from massive house demolitions every week, leaving them homeless in extremely harsh conditions. There is an urgent need for international presence to prevent more destruction of houses, theft of land and construction of illegal settlements, and to call out for international actions and campaigns, as we did in Susiya.
And now that the season for olive harvest is soon to come, we also ask you to join us in October to pick up olives with the farmers. October is the time when the olives are ripe and ready to be harvested, but the Israeli authorities only permit farmers a very limited amount of time to do all this work, and they depend on our help to harvest as many olives as possible, since this is their main source of subsistence. Moreover, our international presence during harvest is crucial to prevent soldiers and illegal settlers from attacking the farmers during their work. This is why your presence makes a real difference.
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During the months of July and August, there has been an escalation of violence from illegal Israeli settlers and the Israeli army towards Palestinians.
ISM is sending an urgent call for volunteers to join us in Palestine. Check the join us section of our website or email ISM at palreports@gmail.com for more information.
On a weekly basis, people throughout the West Bank are being arrested without charges, houses raided during the night, new houses have been demolished, settler violence has increased in the city of Hebron and in other villages, and the Israeli navy has increased the number of attacks towards Gazan fishermen.
On August 1st, the infant Ali Dawabshe was brutally murdered with an arson attack to his house perpetrated by illegal Israeli settlers in the village of Duma. His father, Saad Dawabshe, died one week after from severe burn injuries. Both his mother, Riham, and his 4 year old brother, Ahamd, remain hospitalized with severe burn injuries all over their bodies, with high risk of dying.
Baby Ali’s bedroom in ashes, with his pictures
Since the end of the last Zionist massacre against Gaza there have been 1312 reported attacks against Gazan fishermen.
Since then, 22 boats have been stolen; 26 fishermen have been injured; one fisherman, Tawfiq Abu Riela, has been assassinated; 28 boats have been disabled by bullet fire; 2 big fishing boats have been sunken by rocket fire, one in Deir El Balah at 300m from the coast and one in Gaza City at 5 miles; 51 fishermen have been kidnapped while working and 3 fishermen remain prisoners until now.
Fishermen’s boats in the coast of Gaza.
The team in Hebron has reported an increase of night raids by Israeli forces and attacks by illegal settlers, which is terrorizing Palestinians living in Hebron. Two days ago, on August 20th, a group of French extremist Zionists intimidated and attacked international activists and local Palestinians. This group of extremists, called Kahane, which is considered a terrorist organization under Israeli law, was received with signs of sympathy by the soldiers.
The extremists proudly held the infamous yellow flag of Kahane groupThe soldier handcuffed and blindfolded a Palestinian young man
At approximately 5:00 am, on Wednesday, August 19, the homes of the Totah and Totanji families were demolished by the Israeli army in the neighborhood of Wadi al Joz, in East Jerusalem. This neighborhood has been under threat of demolition since December, 2014, despite the fact that there are no accountable papers presenting a demolition order, nonetheless, the army has been slowly carrying out this plan. Neighbors live in constant fear that anytime their homes will be torn down.
Nureddin Amro sitting on the rubble of his home, which was demolished on March 31st this year (photo credit The Washington Post)
In very similar conditions, the village of Susiya has been suffering from enormous fear by the threat of mass demolition orders issued by the Israeli government since 2012.
Village of Susiya
ISM also needs volunteers to join the 2015 olive harvest campaign.
ISM volunteers join Palestinian farming communities each year to harvest olives in areas where Palestinians face settler and military violence while working their land. Your presence can make a big difference, with Palestinian communities stating that the presence of international volunteers reduces the risk of extreme violence from Israeli settlers and the Israeli army.
The olive tree is a Palestinian national symbol, and the Israeli military systematically prevents agricultural fruition, in order to make life for Palestinians more difficult. The Israeli occupation provides a platform for Palestinian rights to be violated in an array of ways; the attack on agriculture is at the forefront.
Already documented this year, and to list a few cases; the trees have suffered settler sewage runoff , sabotaging fires, and being uprooted. Olive trees comprise of an essential 14% of the Palestinian agricultural economy.
We support Palestinians’ assertion of their right to earn their livelihoods and be present on their lands. International solidarity activists engage in non-violent intervention and documentation and practical support, which enables many families to pick their olives.
The campaign will begin during the last week of September and will last around 5 weeks. We request a minimum of 10 days commitment from harvest volunteers once they have finished their training, but stress that people staying for a longer period of time are needed as well. We ask that volunteers start arriving around the 20th of September, so that we will be prepared when the harvest begins.
Training
We request volunteers who join us any time of the year to commit for a minimum of two weeks after completing training, but stress that people who can work with us for longer periods of time are needed as well. In the case of the olive harvest campaign, we ask volunteers to commit with ISM for a minimum period of 10 days after completing training. The ISM will be holding mandatory two day training sessions which will run weekly on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Please see the join ISM page or contact palreports@gmail.com for further information.
11th August 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Two days ago, on Sunday’s night at 3am, the occupation forces kidnapped fishermen Mohamed Ismail Sharafi, 34 years old, and Mohamed Saidi, 22 years old, in Gaza City waters.
According to the testimony of the other fishermen that where working with them the night of the attack, around 10 boats, one of the two fishermen was injured by live ammunition before being kidnapped.
The aggression took place at 5 miles off shore and their boat was also taken to Ashdod.
Two weeks ago Ahmed Sharafi, Mohamed’s brother, was shot in his back with live ammunition while working with his father.
Since the end of the last Zionist massacre against Gaza there have been 1312 reported attacks against the fishermen.
Since then, 22 boats have been stolen; 26 fishermen have been injured; one fisherman, Tawfiq Abu Riela, has been assassinated; 28 boats have been disabled by bullet fire; 2 big fishing boats have been sunken by rocket fire, one in Deir El Balah at 300m from the coast and one in Gaza City at 5 miles; 51 fishermen have been kidnapped while working and 3 fishermen remain prisoners until now.
Those facts, among other practices of the occupation forces, have caused the quantity of fish caught to decrease from 1600 tons the year before the massacre to 1000 tons the year after. At the same time the number of fishermen who work in the Gaza Strip has decreased from 3000 to 1000 and the fishermen who keep working have seen how their monthly income decreased from 2000 ILS to the actual 100 ILS.
This last year, just in Beach Camp, 50 children of fishermen have left the school in order to work carrying flour sacks at the doors of UNRWA for 1 ILS each sack.
It’s becoming something common that the fishermen families have to choose between their children and decide which ones will go to school and which ones will have to work in order to support the family.
In this moment there are 900 children of fishermen in Gaza City, and 1700 in all the Strip, that should start the academic year in 20 days and whose parents can’t afford to buy them the school materials.
