November 27th, 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Khuzaa, Gaza strip, Occupied Palestine
Soldiers observe farmers working on their fields
In Gaza, farmers should have started to plant wheat almost a month ago. However, in Khuzaa, a village close to Khan Younis, farmers who own land near the fence have not been able to start, as they don’t have the permission to access their land. They have been waiting for help from the Red Cross, who has a project to support farmers who need to work their land in that area. However, each time they contacted the Red Cross during the last weeks, they were told that the Israeli Forces didn’t allow them to work, and threatened to shoot any person aproaching the lands.
Two days ago, tired of waiting, they decided to go to their land and start planting. A few minutes after beginning to work, several jeeps and a tank approached the area. A group of soldiers came out of one of the jeeps and stayed hidden next to the fence. They shot several rounds of live ammunition, without injuring anyone, and insulted the farmers and the international human rights activists.
Jeeps and a tank intervened to stop the farmersSoldiers were shooting live ammunition at the workers
Editor’s note: This is the testimony of a 23 year old woman who survived the land invasion of Khuzaa, Gaza, in the summer of 2014. This is the original version of her writings and no edits have been made.
We were in Khuzaa in our grandfather’s house when the war started. We thought Khuzaa was the safest area. But the 23rd July Khuzaa was a surrounded by tanks, drones and we started hearing many bombs.
We went to the basement to hide from the shooting but my grandfather stayed in the first floor with the other men…
Four days passed by very slowly and with a lot of difficulty, in the last day someone came to tell us that we had to leave Khuzaa.
We accepted and hurried up to the street, we were frightened, the planes were upon us, we were surprised because we thought there was nobody left in Khuzaa, but we saw many people crying, shouting, men injured by gunshot, they were walking covered in blood.
All was very sad.
While we were walking we saw the smoke from the bombs. Everyone was crying, men, women, old people and children.
The trepidation got into our hearts.
Some bombs felled in front of our eyes.
The streets were full of people running.
At some point we had to return back because we found in the street a big hole made by a rocket that prevented us to continue.
When we returned back we found many families in the ground floor.
At night Apache helicopters started hitting the homes with the families inside.
We heard the footsteps of the occupation soldiers; the children were very quiet, they were afraid that the soldiers would hear them.
We heard many people getting killed in their homes.
In the morning somebody came and told us we must leave Khuzaa because Israel was killing everyone, they were shooting at everything, moving or not…
We forced ourselves to go out, but my grandfather refused to leave “I want to die in my home, not in the street like the people from Shijaia”.
We went out thinking that we would be killed by the zionist occupiers, but still with a few hope in our hearts.
I left with my mother, my sister and some other people; we saw rubble, glass and corpses in the street.
I saw a child in the street with his stomach and bowels out. I started shouting what was that, where was the world, where were the Arab countries… and kept crying while going on.
We couldn’t do anything because we were afraid we would get killed by an helicopter or by any kind of weapon, we didn’t know where were the zionist soldiers.
We kept running and running. When we arrived to the entrance of the village we saw many tanks and many soldiers, I was crying so much, and the soldiers started laughing at me.
I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop crying!
When we arrived to Khan Younis we received the bad news, my grandfather had been killed by the occupation. My uncle, who also stayed in Khuzaa, explained me what happened: “grandfather went out from the basement to tell the soldiers that there were just men, women and children in those homes, who had no weapons to defend themselves. But the soldiers killed him putting two bullets in his heart. Everybody was crying then, we were frightened. After that they took us out and took the men to the homes that they were using as base and put them in front of the windows, as human shields. Later they started hitting the men with sticks. Then ordered Alaa Qudaih (the nephew of my grandfather)to take off the clothes of my grandfather. Alaa couldn’t stop crying while doing it. After he covered him with a red blanket. Finally the occupation ordered us to leave Khuzaa and go to Khan Younes.
After three days the occupation allowed us to finally take the corpses to the Hospital.
There were many corpses in the streets, in their homes and under the rubble.
3rd April, 2015 | Miguel Hernández | Khuza’a, Gaza, Occupied Palestine
As soon as we arrived at the land where the farmers wanted to work, about 80 meters from the zionist fence which borders and cuts of the Gaza Strip, an Israeli occupation military jeep stopped in front of us. A group of soldiers left the car and started shooting while cowardly hiding behind a sand mound. From the first moment we used our speaker to let the soldiers know that there were just farmers working, that we were all civilians. After staying there for a few minutes shooting and shouting bad words to the farmers, such as “sharmuta” (bitch), they jumped again on the jeep and left.
Some people from the village came to ask the farmers to go home; they said it was too dangerous. The farmers didn’t listen and luckily they could finish their work without more trouble.
When we were almost done another family approached us and asked if one of us could go with them to a piece of land they have near where we were, at about 50 meters from the fence. We said yes and one of us left with them. The family were terrified the entire time, repeatedly asking us if there would be no problems. We could only tell, that hopefully not.
Israeli Zionist military tower overlooking the farm fields of Khuza’a – photo by Rina Andolini
Once all the work was done and we were leaving the land, two of the youngest farmers explained to us how the father of one of them was killed in the last aggression, along with the brother of the other. They were killed by a rocket along with 4 other people.
During all the journey we could see, on the far side of the fence, the farmers from the nearby kibbutz working peacefully with their modern vehicles, tractors and even airplanes, while the Palestinian farmers locked in Gaza have to work only with their hands, almost lying in the ground, hiding from the zionist bullets and wondering if they will get killed today.
In less than two months the harvest season will commence, and hundreds of peasants will leave their homes ready to risk their lives in their attempts to harvest the crops that are supposed to feed their families. This year they are more afraid than ever, due to the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt. It has been impossible to enter Gaza for most of the international activists that would accompany them and serve as witnesses and protective presence.
Farmlands early in the morning in Khuza’a, Gaza – photo by Rina Andolini
31st March | Rina Andolini | Khuza’a, Occupied Palestine
This is what conversations in Gaza consist of: I asked, “When they are shooting, what’s the best thing to do?”
“Get down on the ground,” he answered, “and move away quick as you can.”
It was a stupid question; I knew the answer. I guess I was hoping for a response that would ensure 100% safety for the farmers, and for myself, but of course no such answer exists.
I am not an expert bullet dodger, if such a thing even exists. If you are a farmer here in Gaza, it is a good idea to become one, as the Israeli military is always shooting. Yet how do you actually avoid bullets? The truth is, you cannot. You just hope for the best.
On Saturday, March 28, the Israeli forces shot a lot at the farmers in Khuza’a. No one could know exactly where the shots were coming from; no one knew where they were aiming, or whether anyone would be hit. Thankfully, that day no one was hurt.
The Israeli military jeeps are clear to be seen, but many soldiers were also hiding in the watch towers and shooting from there. Israeli forces fired at least 25 to 30 shots in a span of two hours.
When the first shots were fired, the farmers moved back as much as possible; as soon the shooting stopped, they returned to the lands where they were working. Then you get used to it, and continue. Where in the world do you have to get used to being shot at while farming?
There were three of us: Miguel, Valeria, and myself. It is not enough. In twenty days, full farming season will begin in Gaza, and we will need to go out every morning. The farmers need more than just three internationals to document the violations committed by the Israeli occupation military at the borders.
What the farmers really need is to be able to work on their land in peace, without feeling threatened. They need to be able to work without risking losing their lives.
We were 50 meters away from the border when they shot at us that morning. The Israeli military can clearly see everything that is happening – farming, and nothing more. So why do they still shoot?
Gazan farmer going about his work in Khuza’a – photo by Rina Andolini
Does the man in this photo look like he is doing anything but farming?
Tilling the land in Gaza is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The Zionist Occupation Forces fire on the peasants and their families while they sow or harvest their own land near the infamous Zionist fence which surrounds Gaza. They also burn their fields and routinely ravage their crops with bulldozers, leaving hundreds of families ruined and preventing the Gaza Strip from developing it’s already devastated economy or achieving a minimum of food sovereignty.
Last Sunday a group of peasants from Khuza’a, a village located in the South of the Gaza Strip, called us to ask for our presence as deterrent witnesses during their journey to sow their fields. The days before they had been harassed by Israeli soldiers, who fired their rifles and shot tear gas grenades from where they crouched inside their tanks and military turrets towards the peasants who were just trying to work their land under a hail of Zionist bullets.
Azzam taking a rest after a morning of hard work.
Azzam, a humble 40 years old farmer, spoke to us of the tragedy of his life: “During the last attack Israel bombed my home and destroyed it completely; now I’m living with my family in a plastic tent.” He also explained us the shameful differences between a Palestinian farmer and farmer from the Israeli occupation. “They kill us, they shoot the few old tractors that we have, they burn our crops and bomb our homes, while their farmers work escorted by a whole army, one of the most powerful armies in the world.”
We finish our task and have a coffee sitting on the ground whose furrows house the seeds sown at the risk of Palestinian farmers’ lives: seeds of wheat, watermelon, peanut, seeds that may not even have the chance to germinate. Sitting now quietly on the scorched land, on the occupied land, land irrigated with Palestinian blood – too much blood – Azzam fixes his eyes beyond that disgraceful fence. He looks beyond the military vehicles, beyond the armed towers, armed with guns that can fire at the a push of a button from Tel Aviv; there we can see the stolen green fields of Palestine, a land deprived of it’s real name and owner, that place that is now known by the infamous name of Israel.
