On Wednesday evening, 11 June 2014, 3 Palestinian civilians, including a child whose condition was described as very serious, were wounded when Israeli forces targeted a member of an armed group who was killed by two missiles launched by a drone in the northern Gaza Strip. Following the crime, Israeli forces admitted to committing the crime as their spokesperson, in cooperation with the “Shin Bet” security services, said that “ they targeted the aforementioned who was involved recently in launching dozens of rockets at the Israeli towns”, according to the Israeli claims.
According to investigations conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), at approximately 22:20on the aforementioned day, Israeli drones launched two missiles at a motorbike travelling near the Palestinian Naval apparatus headquarters on the coastal road, southwest of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. The bike was ridden by Mohammed Ahmed ‘Abdel Latif al-‘Aawour (33), a member of an armed group from Beit Lahia Housing Project, who was immediately killed after the upper part of his body turned into pieces. His nephew, ‘Ali Abdel Latif Ahmed al-‘Awour (10), suffered shrapnel wounds throughout his body causing him bleeding in the brain and he entered into a coma.
Hamadah Hussein Mohammed Naser (32) from Jabalia was wounded by shrapnel in parts of his body as he was travelling in his Black Mercedes car holding registration plate No. 3-00-9206 near the targeted place. Moreover, Monther Hasan al-Masar’ie from Shati’ refugee camp was wounded by shrapnel in different parts of his body also passing by the targeted area. The body of the armed member and the three injured persons were taken to Kamal ‘Edwan Hospital in Beit Lahia. The injury of the child and Naser was described as serious, and they were both transferred to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Meanwhile, the injury of al-Masar’ie was described as moderate. The missiles caused two big holes in the road around 50 centimetres deep.
According to field investigations and examination of the targeted place, large numbers of Palestinian civilians, especially women and children, were on the beach of Beit Lahia and Jablia. They were terrified as a result.
It should be mentioned that when the killed was targeted, he was in al-Basmah Cafeteria owned by his nephew ‘Abdulatif on the coastal road and he took his nephew with him when he left the place.
PCHR condemns this crime, which further proves the use of extra-judicial execution and excessive force by Israeli forces against the Palestinian civilians in disregard for the civilians’ lives. Therefore, PCHR calls upon the international community to take immediate and effective actions to put an end to such crimes and reiterates its call for the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 to fulfil their obligations under Article 1; i.e., to respect and to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances, and their obligations under Article 146 to prosecute persons alleged to have committed the grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and Protocol (I) Additional to the Geneva Conventions.
Israeli Naval forces continued to carry out attacks on Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip during the reporting period[1] (1-30 April 2014), including 11 shooting incidents; 3 chasing incident that led to the arrest of 2 fishermen, and confiscation of 2 fishing boats and fishing equipment (22 pieces of fishing net) belonging to Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip.
Although on 21 May 2013 Israeli authorities limited the fishing distance in Gaza Sea to 6 nautical miles, they neither complied with that distance nor allowed Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip to sail and fish freely, and continued their attacks against them. PCHR documented all attacks carried out within the distance of 6 nautical miles, which proves that Israeli forces’ policies aim to tighten restrictions on the Gaza Strip’s fishermen and their sources of livelihood.
Violations of the International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law
Israel’s attacks against Palestinian fishermen, who do not pose any threat to Israeli soldiers, in the Gaza Strip constitute a flagrant violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, relevant to the protection of the civilian population and respect for its rights, including every person’s right to work, and the right to life, liberty and security of person, as codified in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), despite the fact that Israel is a State Party to the Covenant. Furthermore, these attacks occurred in a time where the fishers did not pose any threat to the Israeli naval troops, as they were doing their job to secure a living. Israeli violations in the reporting period were as follows:
First: Shooting Incidents
During the reporting period, PCHR documented 11 cases in which Israeli forces fired at Palestinian fishermen in the sea off the Gaza Strip shore. Those attacks took place off Beit Lahia shore in the northern Gaza Strip, and Khan Younis shore, in the southern Gaza Strip. As a result, fishermen were forced to flee and leave the sea in all attacks. It is noted that all these incidents happened within the 6 nautical miles allowed for fishermen to sail and fish in, according to the cease fire agreement concluded between Israel and Palestinian armed groups under Egyptian and international auspices
Second: Arrest of two Fishermen:
PCHR documented incidents in which Israeli Naval forces arrested and chased 2 fishermen while they were sailing within about 1 nautical mile off Beit Lahia shore, in the northern Gaza Strip.
– At approximately 5:00, on 24 April 2014, Israeli gunboats stationed northwest off Beit Lahia shore, in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within 1 nautical mile off the shore. An Israeli gunboat surrounded the Palestinian fishing boat and arrested the freshmen on board. The fishermen were identified as:
Sadam Abdel Bari Mohammed al-Sultan (21); and
Mohammed Yasin Ali Zayed (19), both are from Salateen neighborhood in Beit Lahia.
Israeli Navy Forces confiscated the aforementioned boat.
Third: Confiscation of Fishing boats
During the reporting period, PCHR documented chasing incidents and confiscation of fishing boats and other fishing equipment (22 pieces of fishing nets).
– At approximately 15:00, on 03 April 2014, Israeli gunboats chased a fishing boat belonging to Mithqal Mohammed Ghazi Fares Baker (40) from al-Shati refugee camp, in Gaza City. Baker was sailing within about 4 nautical miles off al-Sudanya shore, in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli Naval Forces confiscated the boat and took it to an unknown destination.
– On 5 April 2014, Israeli gunboats confiscated 12 pieces of fishing nets (600 meters) belonging to Hatem Jomaa Abu Salima (42) from the Sweden village, west of Rafah.
– On 6 April 2014, Israeli gunboats confiscated 10 pieces of fishing nets (500 meters) belonging to Ahmed Mohammed al-Najjar (30) from the Sweden village, west of Rafah.
– At approximately 05:00 on 24 April 2014, Israeli gunboats confiscated a fishing boat belonging to a Palestinian fisherman and arrested two of them. (see the abovementioned section on arrest of two fishermen).
Table of Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Fishermen in Gaza City in April 2014
Month
Firing
Shelling incidents
Killed Persons
Injuries
Arrest Incidents
Number of Detainees
Confiscation of Fishing Boats and Fishing Equipment
We connected with the Palestine Trauma Centre (PTC) before we had left the UK. Within a few days of contact with them they had resolved all of our complicated visa issues and have since proved to be the most wonderful hosts. In our first couple of weeks in Gaza we could often be found loitering in their building, sitting in on therapy groups, drinking some of the best tea in Gaza and getting impromptu Arabic lessons.
PTC Gaza (Photo by Paramedics in Gaza)
The PTC was set up in 2007 following extensive research by its founder Dr Mohamed Altawil on the effects of chronic psychological trauma on the Gazan population. The results of the research were staggering; of the 1.8million population, 700,000 were considered to require immediate psychological, social and medical assistance. The center was set up with the aim of providing free therapy, counseling, rehabilitation and preventative programmes to children, individuals and families.
Incredibly they have worked with 100 000 people so far…
The organisation is made up of paid staff together with a large number of qualified volunteers: Psychologists, psychiatrists, specialist trauma counsellors together with the necessary office staff and project managers. With the lack of employment across Gaza they are able to give newly graduated students from the universities the opportunity to gain experience and practise their new skills in the field.
They run workshops, groups and one on one session’s in their offices in Gaza City. The walls in the activity room are decorated with large posters and art the children have made. The first time we visited we both struggled to hold it together, it’s like seeing war through the eyes of children… drawings of tanks and bombs and bullet ridden bodies. There’s also large visual case studies documenting some of their success stories; the girl who was terrified of water because of the relentless sea to land attacks, and the child who with extensive one on one psychological support was finally able to grieve her mother killed in the conflict.
(Photo by Paramedics in Gaza)
When needed, the PTC also takes its work directly out into the community, running groups in conjunction with other local associations or working directly with remote Gazan families. Most of these families wouldn’t otherwise have access to psychological support; due to the unaffordable cost of transport into central Gaza from the refugee camps or alternatively being fearful of the stigma attached to receiving mental health care at the centre itself.
PTC run play group in Gaza – photo PTC Gaza
During Cast Lead a PTC rapid response team was developed, to deliver psychological first aid to as many people as possible. The team reached some of the most dangerous areas, and in some events were there before emergency medical crews had gained access. The team still exists and undergoes frequent development and is ready to respond whenever necessary.
Like most local based projects in Gaza, funding is a constant issue. Grants are attained project by project mainly from large NGOs (such as USAid, InterPal, Muslim Aid and Quaker funding). While currently they have multiple projects being funded previously they have gone 20 months without funding. Instead of closing the doors the staff continued their work – all as volunteers until new funding came through.
First response team in action Cast Lead – photo PTC Gaza
Their work is nothing short of inspirational, you can find out more about them here and here.
In an extra-judicial execution attempt, Israeli forces targeted 2 members of an armed group on a motorbike wounding them and another 13 Palestinian civilians, including 5 children, in a densely-populated area in the northern Gaza Strip.
According to investigations conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), at approximately 16:45on Wednesday, 23 April 2014, an Israeli drone fired 2 missiles at a motorbike near Beit Lahia Sport Club in al-Manshiyah Street in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia, which is a densely-populated area. As a result, the two persons on the motorbike were wounded by shrapnel throughout their bodies; one of them was in a critical condition. It was found out later that they are members of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – Martyr Nedal al-‘Amoudi Brigade. Due to the scattering shrapnel, 13 civilian bystanders, including 5 children, sustained shrapnel wounds throughout their bodies, and they were transferred to hospitals to receive medical treatment. Their wounds were described between minor and moderate. (PCHR keeps the names of the wounded)
The attack caused minor damages to 7 stores and around 10 houses in the vicinity of the targeted area. Moreover, Palestinian civilians living in the street, especially children and women, were terrified. It should be mentioned that this street is known as one of the most densely-populated areas in Beit Lahia.
Israeli forces declared later, via the Israeli media, that the Israeli Air Force targeted, as they described, a Palestinian cell that intended to launch rockets at the Israeli towns, while PCHR’s investigations confirmed that when they were targeted, they were not in a position to fire rockets.
PCHR strongly condemns this crime, which further proves the use of excessive force by Israeli forces against Palestinian activists in disregard for their lives of civilians as the attack took place in a densely-populated area.
PCHR calls upon the international community to take immediate and effective action to stop Israeli crimes and reiterates its call for the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their obligations under Article 1; i.e., to respect and to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances, and their obligation under Article 146 to prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and Protocol (I) Additional to the Geneva Conventions.
Ibrahim Jeradeh is the Gaza War Cemetery’s longtime caretaker. (Joe Catron)
On a recent, sunny afternoon, Kath Henwood, a Yorkshire paramedic volunteering in the Gaza Strip, walked through rows of headstones at the Gaza War Cemetery with a camera and notebook.
“My regular crewmate at work, in his spare time, researches World War II,” she said. “He’s really passionate about it.”
When Henwood learned of the cemetery, she said, “my first thought was to tell him about it.”
The cemetery, off Saladin street in northern Gaza City, is one of thousands maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), a consortium of Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
It contains 3,691 graves, all but 474 of them for First World War troops from the Commonwealth of Nations. A further 210 are from the Second World War.
Others include Egyptian and Turkish soldiers, as well as Canadian United Nations peacekeepers.
Their memorials, from simple headstones to an imposing “cross of sacrifice” — a memorial found in numerous CWGC cemeteries — reflect their varied faiths: Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and secular.
And the careful landscaping and quiet solitude around them make the cemetery an attractive destination for everyone from picnicking families to students looking for a place to study.
After she told him about it, Henwood’s colleague sent her a list of 19 graves, and asked that she photograph them.
Ibrahim Jeradeh, the cemetery’s longtime caretaker, helped her find them quickly.
Later, sitting on a marble bench in the shade of the cross of remembrance, he spoke about the cemetery and his life taking care of it.
“Killing is no good”
“War is war, and killing is killing,” he said, passing a hot cup of sugary tea. It was a theme to which he would return again and again.
“In my mind, war is no good. Killing is no good.”
Now 77, Jeradeh started working at the cemetery, then overseen by his father, when he was 20. He officially retired as its head gardener at 65, when his son Issam replaced him.
“I don’t know about politics,” he said of the changes that have affected the cemetery over nearly a century since its founding by British forces after the Third Battle of Gaza in 1917. “I know about the trees.”
But politics have rarely left Jeradeh or his trees alone for long.
Headstones destroyed
In 2006, Israeli troops bulldozed the cemetery’s perimeter wall and six of its headstones. Months later, an Israeli military helicopter fired its cannon at one of the large memorial stones.
“Two dozen other headstones have been pockmarked by shrapnel from Israeli artillery and several have been completely destroyed,” The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported (“Fury as Israelis damage war cemetery,” 13 November 2006).
During Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s military offensive against the Gaza Strip in late 2008 and early 2009, Israeli forces bombarded the cemetery, striking it with at least five shells and singing its grass with white phosphorous (“Israel shelled UK war graves in Gaza,” The Daily Telegraph, 20 January 2009).
“We repaired it,” Jeradeh said. “All of it. Alhamdulillah [Thanks to God], it is like new.”
The Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip has also affected the cemetery. In February 2009, a year after Paul Price’s appointment as CWGC’s regional supervisor for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, he had yet to be allowed by Israel to enter Gaza (“Battle still rages where my great-uncle fell in Gaza back in 1917,” The Observer, 22 February 2009).
In May 2013, a year after a seemingly simple pump failure had left the cemetery’s grass and flowers parched, the CWGC said that finally replacing the pump “proved challenging” (“Gaza war cemetery returns to former green glory,” Commonwealth War Graves Commission, 30 May 2013).
Moshe Dayan sought to exhume the five Jewish graves in the Gaza War Cemetery. (Joe Catron)
Despite its foreign affiliations — which ultimately afforded it some protection — the cemetery has also been targeted by Israel culturally, as well as militarily.
Following Israel’s 1967 seizure of the Gaza Strip, Moshe Dayan, then Israeli defense minister, sought to exhume the cemetery’s five Jewish graves and take them to Israel.
The attempt came as Israeli forces looted thousands of historical artifacts, particularly Jewish ones, from their newly-occupied territories, an effort in which Dayan participated enthusiastically as both a military official and a private collector (“Stealing Palestine’s history,” This Week in Palestine, 1 October 2005).
“I refused,” Jeradeh said, his eyes bright. “I was young then. I told him, ‘Go to our office in London.’”
“No difference”
“They are buried here. How could he take them? The Jews here are Jews, not Israelis. There is no difference here between Jews, Muslims and Christians. They are all human.”
Surrounded by fields of grass and rows of colorful flowers and polished stones, the troubles of occupation and siege seemed as distant as Jeradeh’s clash with Dayan.
Maintaining the cemetery’s immaculate condition is hard work, Jeradeh said, even in retirement.
“This is the best, cleanest place in Gaza,” he said. “I work hard to keep it nice.”
Officially, since his mandatory retirement, Jeradeh has served as the cemetery’s night watchman. “I keep this place completely safe,” he said.
In practice, his work as a gardener has continued, if not at the same rate.
“I don’t buy plants,” he said. “I use the ones from my nursery. And I teach the people who work with me.”
“You see all that?” he asked, his arm sweeping across the cemetery. “My drawings.”
“I am always here. Where else should I go? Twenty-four hours a day.” Still, he acknowledged that his pace may have slowed. “Seventy-seven years is a long time.”
He also spends time with visiting family, including four sons and nine daughters. When asked how many grandchildren he had, he laughed.
“I don’t want to remember,” he said, gesturing at a group of small girls peering curiously from behind a row of headstones. “More than a hundred. But they live outside, in Gaza.”
“I like to study,” he added. “I read books on history, geography, horticulture, medicine, everything. I am always reading. And I like writing. Every day, I write what happened to me.”
When asked how long he has kept his journals, he laughed again. “I don’t remember. I have books like this,” he said, gesturing at the height of his shoulder.
“But I started when I was young, and continued day by day, year by year.”
“You are happy writing here,” he said, pointing to a notebook. “The head is clear for it.”
He showed his study, a detached building, behind the larger gardener’s quarters at the cemetery’s edge, equipped with a personal computer and filled with stacks of books and printed articles.
“The pencil is dangerous,” he said. “The man who succeeds in his life writes the facts.”
Returning to the lush greenery of the cemetery, he said, “I don’t feel any problems here … Any man, if he likes others, the others like him. If you do good for others, others do good for you.”
“Everybody knows that war is war, and killing is killing,” he repeated, gesturing again at the thousands of stones surrounded by his carefully-tended flowers.
“Now everything here is history. No one here hates anyone else.”
