Tag: Gaza

Israeli forces open fire on Palestinian farmers and internationals in Al Faraheen

5th February 2009

Israeli soldiers open fire on Palestinian farmers and international Human Rights Workers twice in threepict0385 days

Israeli soldiers again opened fire on Palestinian farmers and international Human Rights Workers (HRWs) on Thursday 5th February, as they attempted to harvest parsley in agricultural land near the Green Line.

Returning to farm-land of Al Faraheen village, in the Abassan Jedida area, east of Khan Younis, where soldiers had opened fire on Tuesday 3rd February, farmers and HRWs were able to harvest the parsley crop for only half an hour, before soldiers again began to shoot. A number of shots were fired into the air, before the soldiers started to aim in the direction of the farmers and international accompaniment. Bullets were heard to whiz past, close to people’s heads.

The soldiers continued to shoot on the group, despite the fact that many members of the group had their arms in the air and were wearing
fluorescent vests to make them highly visible, and identify them as Human Rights Workers; had erected a banner indicating that the farmers
and accompaniment were civilians; contact had been made with the Israeli army to advise them that Palestinian civilians and internationals would be working in the area; the various international embassies had been advised of the planned accompaniment; and the internationals were announcing their presence via a megaphone – demanding that the soldiers stop shooting on unarmed civilians.

pict0393“We are unarmed civilians! We are farmers and international Human Rights Workers! Stop Shooting!”

With internationals acting as human shields, the farmers – after initially lying down to avoid being shot – attempted to continue harvesting. After a few moments, however, the shooting intensified and farmers decided to leave the area, rather than be killed. Internationals announced on the megaphone that the group was leaving the area – asking that the soldiers halt their fire. Instead, as the group started to leave, the shooting further intensified in rapidity and proximity. Even after the group had taken refuge in a house, approximately 1km from the Green Line, the soldiers continued to shoot at nearby houses that were demolished during the recent Israeli Operation Cast Lead.

This behaviour on the part of the Israeli soldiers was an almost exact repeat of their response to the presence of the farmers and internationals, in the same area of farm-land, two days before. On the Tuesday, however, the group was able to harvest for two hours before soldiers began to shoot. Whilst farmers had hoped to be able to wait-out the shooting, in order to continue harvesting, it quickly
became clear that the situation was too dangerous for that to be possible.

The farmers of Al Faraheen are particularly aware of the level of danger they face when entering farm lands that are within 1 km of the Green Line – after watching their friend and colleague, 27 year old Anwar Il Ibrim, from neighbouring Benesela, killed by a bullet to the neck while he was picking parsely in the same area, just one week before.pict0390

The owner of the land, Yusuf Abu Shaheen, commented after Tuesday’s gun-fire “If you [internationals] hadn’t been with us today, the soldiers would have killed us all”.

Whilst it has become increasingly dangerous for farmers to enter their lands near the Green Line, especially since the recent Israeli attacks, for farmers like Yusuf, there is an economic imperative to harvest his crops. Yusuf explains that just to plant the crops and keep them watered and fertilised, costs him $2000 each month – money that has already been spent. There is the additional factor of a lack of water that increases the sense of urgency to harvest crops planted in the vicinity of the Green Line. Israeli forces broke the pipes for the area one week before their war on Gaza began. The parsley in the most dangerous areas, with water, could very well have been left for another week or two without harvesting – in the hope that the soldiers might become less aggressive over time. Without water, the plants are becoming increasingly tough, sweet and salty. If they are not harvested soon, they will become worthless.

The workers, who are employed by Yusuf to harvest the crops, also put themselves in mortal danger every time they enter the lands close to the Green Line. Like most in the Gaza Strip, they too are compelled by economic concerns to risk their lives for the meager sum of 20
shekels ($5)/day. With an unemployment rate of 40%, and almost two-thirds (900 000) of Gaza’s residents reliant on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the levels of poverty existing in Gaza mean that, for many families, money earned by sons and farmers risking their lives near the Green Line, might be the only money they have.

Anwar’s mother explains that her son hadn’t worked in the Al Faraheen area for 6 months – not since a large-scale Israeli incursion into the
area in May 2008, and the following Israeli military aggression, made agricultural work in the area extremely dangerous. Anwar, the only
son in the family, felt compelled to try to earn whatever he could to support the family – in particular to buy medicine for his ailing and paralysed father.

The ability of farmers to earn money from these lands is not only being threatened by the daily shooting from the Israeli army, however, but also by the inability to irrigate the crops. On Tuesday, Yusuf took the opportunity to remove expensive connecting valves from the irrigation pipes. On Thursday, an elderly farmer was pulling up all of the irrigation pipes themselves – now useless as it is impossible to get water to the area. This crop the farmers have spent two days trying to harvest, seems likely to be the last that will be planted there for some time.

pict0388Such actions – shooting at farmers trying to work their lands; and destroying irrigation systems – are part of the wider, systematic economic oppression of Palestinians. Along with sanctions and a siege that prevents Palestinians from importing and exporting goods; and denies freedom of movement to work in other countries, Israeli military forces also attempt to prevent Palestinians from deriving income from other methods, such as fishing and farming – through extreme levels of military force. Indeed, throughout the 23-day war on Gaza, the Israeli military, along with demolishing approximately 10,000 homes, and damaging many thousands more to the extent to which they are uninhabitable, intentionally killed hundreds of thousands of livestock, and bulldozed thousands of dunums of agricultural land.

In order to stand in solidarity with farmers in their struggle against this economic oppression, international HRWs will continue to accompany farmers to dangerous lands – challenging Israeli military imposition of “closed military zones” in areas that they claim to no longer occupy.

NLG Members in Gaza Document Executions of Civilians, Blocking of Humanitarian Aid, and Destruction of Civil Property

National Lawyers Guild

For Immediate Release—February 5, 2009

Contact: Paige Cram, NLG Communications Coordinator, 212-679-5100, ext.15

Gaza—On its second day in Gaza, the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) delegation witnessed the rubble of the American International School in Gaza. An Israeli aerial attack killed the watch guard on duty and completely demolished the school at 2am on January 3, 2009.

“Israel doesn’t want anything good or bright in Gaza. They want us to live in the dark ages, just waiting in line for gas and bread,” said Ribhi Salem the school’s Director, who previously spent 20 years living and teaching in Chicago. Salem noted that the school is modeled on American schools and teaches “American values.” Because of that, he said, the school has been attacked on two previous occasions by local extremists since it opened in 2000.

The American school was only one of thousands of buildings destroyed in the recent Israeli offensive. Guild delegates were alarmed at the indiscriminate attacks against civilian neighborhoods, which left thousands of Gaza’s residents homeless and living in UN-provided tents. Israeli forces also targeted local businesses, including a tahini and sweet factory in Jabaliyya, leaving the poverty-stricken population more aid dependant.

John Ging, Director of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), told the delegation that although the need is much greater now because of the war, less food aid is getting in now than before the war. “Nine hundred thousand people need food aid now but on the amount of food we are receiving we can feed only 30,000 each day,” he said. “Thousands of tons of aid are piling up in Al Arish in Egypt and Ashdod Port in Israel,” said Ging. “People need food and blankets. . . its been two weeks and two days [since the ceasefire] and we can’t get enough food into Gaza . . . where’s the accountability?”

The seven delegates also witnessed the remains of the entire residential neighborhood of Izbit Abed Rabbo. Resident Khaled Abed Rabbo told delegates Huwaida Arraf and Radhika Sainath how he witnessed an Israeli soldier execute his 2 year-old and 7 year-old daughters, on a sunny afternoon outside his house there. Two other Israeli soldiers were standing nearby eating chips and chocolates at the time on January 7, 2009. “I will never eat chocolate again,” said Abed Rabbo, who was formerly employed by the Fateh-led Palestinian authority. His third daughter, Samar, was also shot and paralyzed by the same Israeli soldier. Samar, 4 years old, is currently hospitalized for treatment in Belgium.

Founded in 1937, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.

From beneath the rubble

Eva Bartlett | In Gaza

4 February 2009

Adnan
Adnan

“This is at the beginning, when they started digging survivors and bodies out of the rubble,” Abu Qusay said. Just a few weeks after being buried alive by the bombing which attacked the building he was in, only a mere scar at his left eyebrow hints at the ordeal.

Abu Qusay is in his thirties, is the father of 6 kids between the ages of 4-15, and has worked as a policeman and security guard for 14 years now. When the late President Yasser Arafat was alive, Abu Qusay was a bodyguard for wife Suha Arafat.

In recent times, since the election of Hamas, he has continued in his role as security guard, these days accompanying VIPs as well as being the Manager of security for international guests.

It is in this capacity that I met Abu Qusay and Hamsa, the latter killed during the war on Gaza.

In one of Gaza’s coastal hotel cafes, seascape in the background and F-16 flying overhead, Abu Qusay related his story: he is a survivor of the first attacks, during which an estimated 60 Israeli warplanes simultaneously targeted around 100 police stations, police training academies, civil and governmental offices, and other security-related posts throughout the Gaza Strip.

We had a meeting at the Montada, the Presidential compound. There were about 15 of us and we’d entered the 3 rd floor meeting room shortly after 11 am. I was sitting 2 seats from the manager at the head of the table, with a friend in between us and the other attendees spread around the table.

The manager was speaking when the first strikes hit.

[2:35, an F-16 flies low overhead, growls loudly. Abu Qusay stiffens, stops speaking suddenly, then resumes after a pause.]

The explosion itself was strange, unlike other bomb blasts. I felt an immense air pressure which pushed me to the ground. Then I heard the explosion of the buildings nearby. It was such a foreign sensation, I didn’t know what was going on.

I tried to open my eyes and found that I couldn’t. The air was thick with dust which blinded me. I felt something running down my face. I tried many times to open my eyes but the dust stung them so much that it was impossible for a while. Finally, I was able to keep them open but I still couldn’t see anything. Just a small hole of light. It seemed like I was facing a wall with a tiny break in it.

I felt someone’s foot at my head and told the person to get their shoe away from my face. I was still disoriented, still had no idea what had happened.I tried to push the shoe away but found that my arms were pinned behind me, as if handcuffed. There was still liquid streaming down my face and I realized it was blood.

I began to hear the screaming and moaning of people around me. Then I heard a woman’s voice, which I recognized as one of my colleagues. Then Hamsa’s voice, telling us to be patient.

I felt the crushing weight moving off of me and then realized I was being pulled out from what had been burying me: concrete blocks and the rubble of our building. I realize that the 3rd floor room where we had been meeting was now on the ground floor. Three floors brought down to ground level.

I woke up at Shifa hospital, realized I’d passed out at the bomb site. Around me, all around me, all I could see were bodies. Corpses and wounded were scattered on the floor of the emergency room. There were so many, too many for the beds. People with legs and arms amputated. People with hideous open wounds.

It was surreal: I had been in a meeting, then was buried under rubble, then was surrounded by so much death. I couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t understand what had happened.

I forgot myself, I lost myself. I forgot my pain when I saw a child who had been at a school near the Montada. His head was pierced with wounds. I got up, was walking around looking at everyone. I was absorbed by it. Doctors and others were telling me to sit down, stay put. Where are you going, you’re injured? they asked.

Living in Gaza, we expect anything from Israel. Any attacks. We’ve lived through so many invasions and bombings. But I couldn’t believe this, couldn’t believe the scale of what they had done. And I didn’t even know about the other areas of Gaza at the time.

I used to drive ambulances. I’d learned how because I believe its important to broaden my skills, and I’m always trying to do so. But in all my days of driving ambulances, I’d never seen injuries and dead as horrific as what I saw that day. So many amputations, decapitations even.

And I keep remembering that child, the one from the school nearby. Were there fighters in the school when Israel bombed nearby? What had that child done? What had any of us working for the government done? Could this ever happen to policemen in America, Canada, England…? How can these criminals who would bomb in areas where there are civilians, children coming from school, who kill animals and uproot trees not be recognized as terrorists? They’ve committed massacres on us.

Palestinians help a wounded man after Israeli air force attacked Gaza City December 27, 2008
Palestinians help a wounded man after Israeli air force attacked Gaza City December 27, 2008

Abu Qusay is obviously one of the luckier, having survived the bombing with limbs intact. Like so many Palestinians in Gaza, though, he lost a number of friends in the attacks. I try to imagine how it would be to lose more than one friend, say 10, or more than one family member, say 7, or like the Samouni family, 48. It’s impossible to imagine.

Urgent call to all social movements

Open Gaza Borders!

We reiterate the need for a call from Palestinian community based organisations and the over 130 grassroots NGOs in the Palestinian NGO Network for an immediate opening of all border crossings currently controlled by Israel and Egypt.

Gaza is in the grip of a man-made humanitarian crisis. Thousands of tons of food, medical and emergency shelter aid including blankets and mattresses, donated by countries including the United States and aid organisations, is being denied entry through crossings by both the Israeli and Egyptian governments.

The United Nations has stated that 900,000 Gazans are now dependent on food aid following Israel‘s 22-day assault on the tiny coastal territory. Only 100 aid trucks are being allowed into Gaza each day – 30 less than were being brought in last year and substantially less than before Israel’s operation ‘Cast Lead’: an attack that has left over 1,300 Palestinians dead, the vast majority of them civilians massacred in their streets and homes. With over 5,000 injured and 100,000 homeless, admittance of aid is crucial at this time.

This is a fraction of the estimated 500-600 trucks deemed necessary to sustain the population of Gaza according to the United Nations. According to UNRWA, food trucks are delivering enough food to feed just 30,000 people per day.

Hundreds of medical patients, the injured from this war and Israel’s previous invasions, are being prohibited from leaving Gaza for indispensable medical treatment. Over 268 people have died of preventable and treatable conditions after being denied access to treatment since the beginning of the ongoing siege two years ago.

Israel and Egypt have designated February 5th as the final day for all foreign nationals to leave Gaza through the southern Rafah border. Egypt has said it will close the Rafah border indefinitely. Despite a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Health that humanitarian cases will be allowed through, many patients have already been turned back, before the closing of the border. Hundreds of patients and some of those wounded from ‘Cast Lead,’ are still waiting for permission to exit Gaza through Rafah for medical treatment.

The Gazan community is concerned that Israel will be stepping up its’ economic, political, cultural and militarised stranglehold on Gaza in the upcoming weeks.

Post Israeli elections, Gazans fear the Israeli government will conduct extra judicial killings and continue their deadly strikes on Palestinian governmental figures, targeting of social and economic infrastructure and indiscriminate killings of civilians in the process. Actions that have proven to not only end lives but successfully cripple Palestinian development including reconstruction of homes destroyed by Israeli bombings and bulldozing during and before Operation ‘Cast Lead’.

Thousands of internally displaced people face an uncertain future residing in flimsy canvas tents reminiscent of the mass dispossession through the ethnic cleansing of 1948 when the state of Israel was first established on Palestinian land.

A de-facto land grab and re-colonisation of Gaza is underway, with the demolition of hundreds of homes and destruction of farms in the Israeli defined ‘buffer zone’ areas of Rafah, Eastern (Shijaye) and Northern (Beit Hanoun) areas of Gaza. Killings, shelling and shootings of farmers and residents in border areas are continuing.

The ‘buffer zone’ has been expanded to cut into Palestinian lands by one kilometre. Israeli occupation forces have shot at residents that have attempted to retrieve their belongings from the bombed and bulldozed remnants of their homes along the border of Beit Hanoun. The army also continues to fire at farmers planting their fields in village areas such as al Faraheen near Khan Younis.

The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture says Israeli occupation forces have destroyed 60% of Gaza’s agricultural land during this winter’s war.

Effective international direct action and an escalation of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign is necessary to resist the intensification of the collective punishment, imprisonment and ongoing war on the people of Palestine.

The situation is worsening: the stranglehold on the people of Gaza is tightening, humanitarian relief is being deliberately choked, trauma is deepening, people are being humiliated on a daily basis and development is not just blocked but in the process of being actively reversed.

We call on social movements, particularly No Borders networks, and people of conscience to target Israeli and Egyptian embassies, institutions, and corporations. Particularly in the coming days of intensified border closure, we must work to pressure both governments to abide by international law and open Gaza for the free movement of aid, goods and people.

End the collective punishment of the Gazan people, open the borders.

Shooting at farmers, what gives Israel the right?

Eva Bartlett | In Gaza

3 February 2009

I was fairly certain that one of us would be shot today.

This morning, farmers from Abassan Jadiida (New Abassan), to the east of Khan Younis , the southern region, returned to land they’d been forced off of during and following the war on Gaza. The continual shooting at them by Israeli soldiers while they work the land intensified post-war on Gaza. The Israeli soldiers’ shooting was not a new thing, but a resumption of the policy of harassment that Palestinians in the border areas have been enduring for years, a harassment extending to invasions in which agricultural land, chicken farms, and the houses in the region have been targeted, destroyed in many cases.

Today’s Abassan farmers wanted to harvest their parsley.

Ismail Abu Taima, whose land was being harvested, explained that over the course of the year he invests about $54,000 in planting, watering and maintenance of the monthly crops. From that investment, if all goes well and crops are harvested throughout the year, he can bring in about $10,000/month, meaning that he can pay off the investment and support the 15 families dependent on the harvest.

The work began shortly after 11 am, with the handful of farmers working swiftly, cutting swathes of tall parsley and bundling it as rapidly as it was cut. These bundles were then loaded onto a waiting donkey cart. The speed of the farmers was impressive, and one realized that were they able to work ‘normally’ as any farmer in unoccupied areas, they would be very productive. A lone donkey grazed in an area a little closer to the border fence. When asked if this was not dangerous for the donkey, the farmers replied that they had no other choice: with the borders closed, animal feed is starkly absent. The tragedy of having to worry about being shot once again struck me, as it did when harvesting olives or herding sheep with West Bank Palestinians who are routinely attacked by Israeli settlers and by the Israeli army as they try to work and live on their land.

After approximately 2 hours of harvesting, during which the sound of an F-16 overhead was accompanied by Israeli jeeps seen driving along the border area, with at least one stationed directly across from the area in question, Israeli soldiers began firing. At first the shots seemed like warning shots: sharp and intrusive cracks of gunfire. The men kept working, gathering parsley, bunching it, loading it, while the international human rights observers present spread out in a line, to ensure our visibility.

It would have been hard to miss or mistake us, with fluorescent yellow vests and visibly unarmed–our hands were in the air.

Via bullhorn, we re-iterated our presence to the soldiers, informing them we were all unarmed civilians, the farmers were rightfully working their land, the soldiers were being filmed by an Italian film crew. We also informed some of our embassies of the situation: “we are on Palestinian farmland and are being shot at by Israeli soldiers on the other side of the border fence.”

For a brief period the shots ceased. Then began anew, again seemingly warning shots, although this time visibly hitting dirt 15 and 20 m from us. Furthest to the south, I heard the whizz of bullets past my ear, though to estimate the proximity would be impossible.

As the cracks of gunfire rang more frequently and louder, the shots closer, those of the farmers who hadn’t already hit the ground did so, sprawling flat for cover. The international observers continued to stand, brightly visible, hands in the air, bullhorn repeating our message of unarmed presence. The shots continued, from the direction of 3 or 4 visible soldiers on a mound hundreds of metres from us. With my eyeglasses I could make out their shapes, uniforms, the jeep… Certainly with their military equipment they could make out our faces, empty hands, parsley-loaded cart…

There was no mistaking the situation or their intent: pure harassment.

As the farmers tried to leave with their donkey carts, the shots continued. The two carts were eventually able to make it away, down the ruddy lane, a lane eaten by tank and bulldozer tracks from the land invasion weeks before. Some of us accompanied the carts away, out of firing range, then returned. There were still farmers on the land and they needed to evacuate.

As we stood, again arms still raised, still empty-handed, still proclaiming thus, the Israeli soldiers’ shooting drew much nearer. Those whizzing rushes were more frequent and undeniably close to my head, our heads. The Italian film crew accompanying us did not stop filming, nor did some of us with video cameras.

We announced our intention to move away, the soldiers shot. We stood still, the soldiers shot. At one point I was certain one of the farmers would be killed, as he had hit the ground again but in his panic seemed to want to jump up and run. I urged him to stay flat, stay down, and with our urging he did. The idea was to move as a group, a mixture of the targeted Palestinian farmers and the brightly-noticeable international accompaniers. And so we did, but the shots continued, rapidly, hitting within metres of our feet, flying within metres of our heads.

I’m amazed no one was killed today, nor that limbs were not lost, maimed.

While we’d been on the land, Ismail Abu Taima had gone to one end, to collect valves from the broken irrigation piping. The pipes themselves had been destroyed by a pre-war on Gaza invasion. “The plants have not been watered since one week before the war,” he’d told us. He collected the parts, each valve valuable in a region whose borders are sealed and where replacement parts for everything one could need to replace are unattainable or grossly expensive.

He’d also told us of the chicks in the chicken farm who’d first been dying for want of chicken feed, and then been bulldozed when Israeli soldiers attacked the house and building they were in.

My embassy rang me up, after we’d managed to get away from the firing: “We’re told you are being shot at. Can you give us the precise location, and maybe a landmark, some notable building nearby.”

I told Heather about the half-demolished house to the south of where we had been, and that we were on Palestinian farmland. After some further questioning, it dawned on her that the shooting was coming from the Israeli side. “How do you know it is Israeli soldiers shooting at you?” she’d asked. I mentioned the 4 jeeps, the soldiers on the mound, the shots from the soldiers on the mound (I didn’t have time to go into past experiences with Israeli soldiers in this very area and a little further south, similar experience of farmers being fired upon while we accompanied them.).

Heather asked if the soldiers had stopped firing, to which I told her, ‘no, they kept firing when we attempted to move away, hands in the air. They fired as we stood still, hands in the air. “ She suggested these were ‘warning shots’ at which I pointed out that warning shots would generally be in the air or 10s of metres away. These were hitting and whizzing past within metres.

She had no further thoughts at time, but did call back minutes later with Jordie Elms, the Canadian attache in the Tel Aviv office, who informed us that “Israel has declared the 1 km area along the border to be a ‘closed military zone’.”

When I pointed out that Israel had no legal ability to do such, that this closure is arbitrary and illegal, and that the farmers being kept off of their land or the Palestinians whose homes have been demolished in tandem with this closure had no other options: they needed to work the land, live on it… Jordie had no thoughts. He did, however, add that humanitarian and aid workers need to “know the risk of being in a closed area”.

Meaning, apparently, that it is OK with Jordie that Israeli soldiers were firing on unarmed civilians, because Israeli authorities have arbitrarily declared an area out of their jurisdiction (because Israel is “not occupying Gaza” right?!) as a ‘closed area’.

Israel’s latest massacre of 1,400 Palestinians –most of whom were civilians –aside, Israel’s destruction of over 4,000 houses and 17,000 buildings aside, Israel’s cutting off and shutting down of the Gaza Strip since Hamas’ election aside, life is pretty wretched for the farmers and civilians in the areas flanking the border with Israel. Last week, the young man from Khan Younis who was shot while working on farmland in the “buffer zone” was actually on land near where we accompanied farmers today. Why do Israeli authorities think they have an uncontested right to allow/instruct their soldiers to shoot at Palestinian farmers trying to work their land?

If Israeli authorities recognized Palestinian farmers’ need to work the land, Palestinian civilians’ right to live in their homes, then they would not have arbitrarily imposed a 1 km ban on existence along the border, from north to south. What gives Israel the right to say that now the previously-imposed 300 m ban on valuable agricultural land next to the order extends to 1 full kilometre, and that this inherently gives Israel the right to have bulldozed 10s of houses in this “buffer zone” and ravaged the farmland with military bulldozers and tanks.

Furthermore, what gives Israel the right to assume these impositions are justifiable, and the right to shoot at farmers continuing to live in and work on their land (as if they had a choice. Recall the size of Gaza, the poverty levels)?

Nothing does.