Tag: Gaza - Page 239 - International Solidarity Movement

Human Rights Defenders speak from Gaza as Israel kills over 200 people

27th December 2008 – Human Rights Defenders from various countries are present in Gaza and are witnessing and documenting the current Israeli attacks on Gaza. Due to Israel’s policy of denying access to international media, human rights defenders and aid agencies to the Occupied Gaza Strip, many of these Human Rights Defenders arrived in Gaza with the Free Gaza Movement’s boats that have repeatedly broken the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

“At the time of the attacks I was on Omar Mukhtar street and witnessed a last rocket hit the street 150 meters away where crowds had already gathered to try to extract the dead bodies. Ambulances, trucks, cars – anything that can move is bringing injured to the hospitals. Hospitals have had to evacuate sick patients to make room for the injured. I have been told that there is not enough room in the morgues for the bodies and that there is a great lack of blood in the blood-banks. I have just learned that among the civilians killed today was the mother of my good friends in Jabalya.” – Eva Bartlett (Canada) International Solidarity Movement

“The Shifa Hospital is already overwhelmed with injured people and does not have the medicine or the capacity to treat them.” – Ewa Jasiewicz (Polish and British) Free Gaza Movment

“The morgue at the Shifa hospital has no more room for dead bodies, so bodies and body parts are strewn all over the hospital.” – Dr. Haidar Eid, (Palestinian, South African) Professor of Social and Cultural Studies, Al Aqsa University Gaza

“The bombs began to fall just as the children were on the streets walking back from school. I went out onto the stairs and a terrified 5 year old girl ran sobbing into my arms.”- Sharon Lock (Australian) International Solidarity Movement

“This is incredibly sad. This massacre is not going to bring security for the State of Israel or allow it to be part of the Middle East. Now calls of revenge are everywhere.” Dr Eyad Sarraj – President of the Gaza Community Mental Health Centre

“As I speak they have just hit a building 200 metres away. There is smoke everywhere. This morning I went to the building close to where I live in Rafah that had been hit. Two bulldozers were immediately attempting to clear the rubble. They thought they had found all the bodies. As we arrived one more was found.” Jenny Linnel (British) International Solidarity Movement

“The home I am staying in is across from the preventive security building. All the glass shattered here. The home has been severely damaged. Due to the siege there is no glass or building materials to repair the damage. This is more than just collective punishment.” Natalie Abu Eid (Lebanon) International Solidarity Movement

Human Rights Defenders in Gaza:
Dr. Eyad Sarraj: (Arabic and English)
Ewa Jasiewicz (Polish and English)
Dr. Haider Eid (English and Arabic)
Sharon Lock (English)
Vittorio Arrigoni (Italian)
Fida Qishta (English and Arabic)
Jenny Linnel (English)
Natalie Abu Shakra (Arabic and English)
Eva Bartlett (English)

For more information contacting the people in Gaza please contact:

Adam Taylor (ISM) – 972 59 8503948 or email palreports@gmail.com

Neta Golan released from Israeli jail

Neta Golan, arrested leaving Gaza on the 22nd December through Erez crossing, has been released today by Israeli police following her second appearance in court in Kiryat Gat.

She was not charged and was released without bail. Neta Golan was kept in isolation for the duration of her time in prison, but had this to say;

“I left Gaza under Israeli siege to another Israeli prison in Kiryat Gat. Yet in Kiryat Gat, while I did not have freedom, I was given food, including bread and dairy, and the cell I was kept in though dirty and cold had electricity. The Palestinian people of Gaza do not have these things due to the Israeli policies of collective punishment.”

After successfully breaking the blockade with the Free Gaza Movement, Neta Golan spent three days in the Gaza Strip observing the effects of the Israeli siege on Gaza. She visited schools, hospitals and farmers who’s lives have been devastated by Israel’s policies of collective punishment.

Upon being arrested Neta Golan stated;

“How can an act against the collective punishment of over 1.5 million people be a crime? The policies of the Israeli State towards the people of Gaza is the real crime”.

Neta Golan is one of the co-founders of the International Solidarity Movement which was nominated twice for a Nobel Peace prize. She has actively resisted the occupation, participating in hundreds of demonstrations against the wall and the illegal settler roads. She is married and lives in Ramallah with her Palestinian husband and two children.

Ynet: Israeli activist charged with violating disengagement order

Police claim Neta Golan, who sailed into Gaza on activists’ boat, will be charged with violating order prohibiting Israelis from entering Gaza. Meanwhile Lebanese boat prepares to sail for Strip on Jan. 3

By Tova Dadon

To view original article, published by Ynet on the 23rd December, click here

The Magistrates’ Court in Kiryat Gat on Tuesday remanded the arrest of peace activist Neta Golan, who attempted to cross into Israel after arriving in Gaza on an activists’ boat from Cyprus. She was arrested at the Erez crossing on Monday.

Police stated an indictment would be filed against Golan, charging her with the violation of the order implementing the State’s Disengagement Plan of 2006. The order prohibits Israeli citizens from entering Gaza.

Police representatives asked the court to remand Golan’s arrest in order to provide for time to prepare the indictment and to consult with the Prime Minister’s Office in order to estimate the danger of Golan’s actions.

Golan’s attorney, Adanan Aladdin, told the court that his client “may have been endangering herself by entering Gaza, but the Gazans welcomed the arrival of the boat carrying a minimal amount of medical equipment to cure the seriously ill.”

Aladdin added, “There is no criminal offense in Golan’s actions. The siege Israel is imposing on Gaza is causing a serious humanitarian crisis endangering the lives of thousands of Gazans.

“Golan was taking personal responsibility as she believed the entire Israeli public should be doing, and boarded the ship that eventually docked in Gaza, otherwise the ship would have been banned. The fact that there were Israelis on board forced the Israeli forces to allow it to dock in Gaza.”

First Lebanese boat follows suit

Meanwhile it was reported that another cargo ship will set sail for Gaza on January 3 to defy the Israeli blockade, the organizer said Tuesday. On board the ship will be Lebanese activists, journalists, and supplies. Authorities at Larnaca port in Cyprus are expected to inspect the cargo and passengers before it proceeds to Gaza.

Hani Sleiman, a lawyer and university professor, said the indirect route is designed to deprive Israel of any excuse not to allow the ship into Gaza.

Five ships carrying activists and goods have run the blockade since the summer, but it will be the first time a ship carrying people and goods from Lebanon.

A spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Yigal Palmor, said Israel will not comment prior to the event and “will react accordingly when it happens.”

AP contributed to this report

Neta Golan arrested by Israeli police after attempting to leave Gaza

Neta Golan, an Israeli citizen and co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), has been arrested by Israeli police while attempting to leave Gaza through the Erez border crossing.

Neta Golan, 38, arrived Gaza on the 20th December, along with 17 human rights observers on the SS Dignity, the fifth boat to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, organised by the Free Gaza Movement.

She will be taken to court tomorrow (23rd December) in Kiryat Gat.

Neta Golan’s lawyer, Adnan Aladdin, condemned the arrest;

“Ms Golan’s actions in no way constitute a crime. Her actions in entering Gaza were acts of necessity based on international law and a rejection of the policies of collective punishment pursued by the Israeli government”

“Humanitarian needs, such as those faced by the Palestinian people of Gaza due to the Israeli siege, make non-violent acts that are clearly a response to this act of collective punishment necessary. This is common sense and has precedent.”

“The Defense of Necessity protects those who peacefully seek to prevent gross violations of human rights, grave breaches of humanitarian law, and war crimes from occurring. Non-violent civil disobedience in opposition to and aimed at preventing gross violations of human rights, grave breaches of humanitarian law, and war crimes has been recognized as justified by the necessity of self-defense and the necessity of defense of others in several jurisdictions around the world. (Source – The State of Israel vs.Ascherman, Arik; Omer, Ori; Hamburger, Shai Eliezer, January 2004, Criminal Case # 003751/03)

Under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, collective punishment is deemed a war crime. Article 33 of the the Fourth Geneva Convention states; “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed,” and that “collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

She stated;

“How can an act against the collective punishment of over 1.5 million people be a crime? The policies of the Israeli State towards the people of Gaza is the real crime”.

“I feel it is my duty to come to Gaza and attempt to raise awareness as to what the Israeli state is doing to the people here. We broke the siege on Gaza, now it is time for more from the international community to do the same in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

The collective punishment of the people of Gaza has, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency, had a devastating effect on the local population. The siege has seen Israel allow only the bare minimum of essential materials allowed into the Strip. Last week even the UN food and cash distribution that was to be transferred was suspended by Israel.

Figures collected by the UN also show that 51.8% of the people of Gaza are now living below the poverty line, a figure the UN described as “unprecedentedly high“. The UN also announced last week that it had been forced to stop distributing food to the 750,000 people inneed and forced to suspend financial distributions to a further 94,000.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles. Founded by a small group of activists in August, 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by providing the Palestinian people with two resources, international protection and a voice with which to nonviolently resist an overwhelming military occupation force.

The International Solidarity Movement re-established its presence in the Gaza Strip following the first voyage of the Free Gaza Movement on the 23rd August 2008. ISM volunteers have been accompanying Gazan fishermen as they fish with Palestinian waters, working with farmers who have land situated along the Green Line and documenting aspects of the siege and occupation of Gaza. On the 18th November, three ISM volunteers were abducted from Palestinian waters by the Israeli navy together with fifteen Palestinian fishermen. The internationals were later deported from Israel, despite never having entered Israeli territory until taken into Israeli waters by the Israeli navy.

ISM Gaza Strip: Drone rockets strike Gazan people

20th December 2008

After welcoming the 5th Free Gaza boat this morning, ISM activists based in the Gaza Strip went to see the site of an Israeli rocket attack that had occurred just as the boat arrived, at about 8.30am. Three rockets were fired from a drone plane, killing an Al Aqsa Brigades fighter and wounding a second.

Sari Al Samana

The rockets hit farmland where local families were working their land, grazing their sheep and goats. They ran from the area during the attack, but out of necessity were back at work when we arrived at about 1pm. While we were there, a drone plane was visible overhead; the drones over Gaza land near the border are present to such an extent that life must go on beneath them. They fire rockets without warning.

Mohmin Qraqe

Hearing reports of two children struck by one of these rockets as they played, we went visited Kamel Adwan Hospital and spoke to Dr Ali Abd, the surgeon who initially treated them, and Dr Wissam Hiazi. They explained that one child had shrapnel wounds to face, neck, arms, abdomen and legs, but that both children had brain injuries. One child required brain matter to be returned to the cavity. After cleaning and bandaging the wounds and treating the children for shock, the doctors sent them to Al Shifa Hospital which has the neurosurgery facilities most of the other hospitals lack.

Mohammed Abd el Nadi

At Al Shifa Hospital we met the uncle of one of the boys, who confirmed that there had been no Palestinian firing from the “factory area” where the boys were attacked. Sari Al Sama’na, 9 years, and his friend Safi Al Sama’na, 8 years, were playing on their bikes at 2.45pm today when a drone fired a rocket between them. We went to see Sari, who lay with bandaged head and blank half-open eyes, unconscious since the attack. The doctor caring for him explained he had lost a great deal of blood, and it would only be in about 3 days time that it would be clearer whether death, paralysis, or recovery with brain damage or psychological trauma awaited him. Safi was still in emergency surgery, his brain injury even more severe. The doctor estimated 30% of his rocket & missile injured patients were children, and another 30% women or elderly people.

While in the hospital we visited three more patients. Mohmin Qraqe, 21, is a journalist who was working on farmland on December 7, 3.30pm, in the Jabalia area, when a rocket fell 2 metres away. He has lost both his legs from the very top of his thighs. He told us that his father had been killed in the first intifada when he was 7 days old, in 1987, and his 20 year old brother was killed by a drone rocket 4 years ago while attending a youth camp. He was living at home to be with his mother, as his older brothers were all married. He says he heard no Palestinian shooting before he was attacked.

Mohammad Abd Nabi, a journalist for Al Quds Radio, went to Beit Hanoun this past Tuesday December 16, to record a report on an Apache helicopter attack on two women that day. He was flagging down a taxi when rocket blast fractured his arm, and he sustained injuries to his head and leg. He was taken to hospital in a civilian car as ambulances were already out on calls, and initially he believed he had lost his hand. This is his second injury.

Zohair Washaha, 48, has a fractured leg and nerve damage after a ground to ground missile blast at 7am this morning, while he worked on farmland near Al Wafa Hospital. He heard no Palestinian shooting in the area prior to the attack. Zohair is in the only breadwinner in a family of 11, 3 of whom are at university.