Tag: Khuza’a - Page 2 - International Solidarity Movement

Journal: Farming in Gaza near the Buffer Zone

9th November | Rina Andolini | Khuza’a, Occupied Palestine

The farmers are rarely talked about. They blend into the background of the lands beyond the destroyed buildings of the towns. The reality is though, they are facing a battle themselves.

Khuza'a Buffer Zone in December 2012 (photo by ISM). — Khuza’a Buffer Zone in December 2012 (photo by ISM).

Many farmers have had their homes, and farmland attacked. Farm land attacked I repeat, I mean, who would ever have thought that land could be an enemy that needed to be struck by a missile?

Well, the attacks from the air have stopped, for now, although the buzz of the drones rarely hum a tune of silence, sometimes accompanied by the whooshing high speed winds that the F-16s bring with them.

The farmers situation is clear cut and simple; they have land and are in fear of tending to it. What is to fear when all you want to do is plough, and sow seeds, and nurture your land to provide food, shelter, and clothing to your family? How is it okay for a person to work in fear of being shot at, for doing nothing other than farm on their land?

The fence in the buffer zone is the cutoff point, so we should be able to go right up to it without fear of being shot at, or even worse, shelled, as the Israeli army rolls around in their tanks pretty much, round the clock.

Yesterday, the 8th of November, the farmers went to their land to start ploughing away at the soil to get it ready for sowing. They use a tractor. What happened when they went? The Israeli military shot in their direction. Luckily, nobody was hurt, but a tire was shot at and destroyed. These farmers struggle to even pay for contingencies such as these; work hazards caused by Israeli attacks, and why should they even have to? But they do.

So, they called several international activists here in Gaza, and said, “Please come with us to our land, we need to go there with the tractor and do our work but they keep shooting at us.”

Of course, we agreed to go and help, and even this morning, they rang two times, to make sure we were coming. They would not start their work without our presence.

This is their situation, they cannot work without fear of being shot at. It is as simple as this. Where in the world do you hear of such crimes against humanity occurring and resulting in no punishment to the aggressor?

It happens here in Gaza, in Palestine, all the time. The Israelis attack, and they continue to get away with it. The world’s silence is killing and destroying these people.

I met with a farmer, his name was Rami Salim Kudeih, he is 33 years of age, with a wife and five children. The youngest child being one month old, and the oldest, nine years of age.

I asked what he wanted to grow on this land and he said, ”wheat and lentils”.

”This is the season for it. The season may leave us and we will not have done any work because we are in constant fear of attacks from Israel. They have killed people here before on this land that is called Um Khamseen.”

”When the Israelis shoot, I feel angry and sad. A woman was killed in a nearby field too, within the last two years. My sister has also been injured whilst working on these fields, she suffered from a head injury but now she is better thanks to God, but sometimes in the cold, the pain comes in her head.”

The saddest thing of all, is that when I asked Rami, what he thought the international world could do; the world outside of the open air prison that is Gaza, his reply was indeed heartbreaking. It showed me that he had lost hope, that he is living with the situation as it is, with no sight for improvement.

‘They [the Israeli military], shoot often, they shoot in our direction, at the land, and alhamdulillah [praise to God] so far no deaths…but we never know what will happen.”

”The only solution is for the internationals to accompany us in the fields so we can do our work.”

I was expecting a response where he would ask the world to raise their voices and put pressure on the world leaders to put a stop to these crimes against humanity, but in fact, he gave a response which showed his resignation to the life that they are subjected to in Gaza. The life of living in constant fear of being attacked by Israel.

This is not how they should live, this is not how anyone should live, but the people of Gaza do. When will we do something to let these people live the life they have a right to and deserve?

During our time this morning out on the field, we were between 100 – 150 metres away from the fence, things were quiet, though we did see two Israeli tanks rolling around close by, and then go into hiding.

The farmers managed to carry out their work in peace and then we left.

The point is though, they should not need to have any internationals present, they should be able to go safely to their land without any worries.

An eyewitness to genocide: a night in Khuza’a

31st July 2014 | Sarah Algherbawi | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Khuza’a is a 4000 acres town that lies east of Khan Younis city in the southern area of Gaza, with a population of almost 11,000 people. On Monday night, July the 21^st, Israeli forces started to bomb Khuza’a heavily, with the aim of destroying it. Before the operation started, the Israeli army ordered the residents of Khuza’a to evacuate their homes, almost 70% of the residents left their homes to UN shelters or relatives’ houses in relatively safe areas, while around 3,000 people decided not to leave.

Mahmoud Ismail, one of the eyewitnesses of the massacre, explained the reasons behind 3,000 people not leaving their homes in response to the IDF orders, saying: “Neglecting Israel’s orders of evacuating our homes was a decision that each of us has made individually, and not at all heroic! It is just that many of us did not have the emotional capacity to sleep away from home, others thought the operation would be over very fast and it wasn’t worth the effort of evacuation, while the majority like me didn’t expect, even in the worst case scenario, that we will witness the worst nightmare of our lives in the coming few hours.”

At first, a bomb cut the main road that linked Khuza’a with Khan Younis, another one then destroyed the power transformers, another damaged the mobile networks, and a fourth destroyed the landlines! Leaving Khuza’a with no electricity, Internet, mobiles, or telephones, completely disconnected.

People spent the whole night in complete darkness; they heard nothing but the noise of shelling, warplanes buzzing, and the falling glass of windows. Fragments of bombs hailing down reached everywhere. Danger surrounded every corner of the house and everybody.

Mahmoud’s mind was besieged with ideas and scenarios that would happen, just as black as the darkness around. He was counting the number of shells, foretelling where they’d fall, whose house that was bombed, is it coming to ours? Which mosque? What kind of bombs are they using? Is it tanks or F16s …? Countless questions with no answers, just the sound of bombs.

The next morning, the ICRC (after hundreds of appeals by residents to save the lives of people, evacuate the injured, and pull out the dead) told them to leave their homes to the entrance of the town to secure their exit. The trapped 3,000 people left their homes in a legion similar to their predecessors, 66 years ago. They reached the entry point with extreme difficulty, but were surprised with Israeli tanks instead of ICRC ambulances, that started to shell and shoot every moving body! People rushed back in the opposite direction; in the meantime, many were killed and injured.

Mahmoud, his family, and other people who he didn’t even know, were able to reach a house that contained 50 people, they distributed themselves into three rooms; believing that this way they might lessen the death toll.

The second night was more horrific, children were crying and screaming, they were terrified and thirsty; as the IDF bombed the town’s water tanks, leaving residents with no water to drink. While Mahmoud and many others were waiting the morning light, hoping that the light would shed some hope.

The light came up, along with a sound of a bomb that hit the shelter. What was even worse than the sound of a bomb was the silence that followed. Everything was hit, and grey is all you see. Moments after, the grey turned into RED! Mother, brother, still alive? He wondered. He checked if he still has his feet, his only way to survive.

Run, he told himself, minutes and he reached his house, once arrived, the house was hit with yet another bomb. He ran again with hundreds of people in different directions, as they came to realize the direction of shelling. On the streets they were stepping on dead bodies and injured people left to bleed. Many faces were familiar to Mahmoud, but they had no choice but to jump over bodies to save their own lives, until they were finally away from Khuza’a.

Why and how Mahmoud, his family, and a number of other families survived, he doesn’t know, its luck and nothing more than luck. They left people behind, and till this moment the actual number of martyrs in Khuza’a is unknown, the only thing Mahmoud knows for sure is that a lot of bodies are still under the rubble.

Photos and video: Israeli forces’ gunfire blocks Palestinian farmland in Gaza

22nd January 2014 | Resistenza Quotidiana, Sil | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sV8WwE0-SY

Since the Zionist occupation forces’ bulldozers had destroyed part of Khaled Qudaih’s field in Khuza’a, east of Khan Younis, he and his family went out to sow it again. The military responded with about half an hour of gunfire, threatening to strike Qudaih directly if he had not moved away.

Qudaih had sown wheat a little less than a month ago. It was growing, it was green and in May would be ripe. On 19th January, he went to his lands with his family to spray fertilizer. Samiha, his twelve year old daughter, wanted to get closer to the separation barrier, but she knew that it was forbidden : mamnua in Arabic.

She came as close as she could, until she reached foreign activists with yellow jackets. She approached and, with the voice of a twelve-year-old child, with the slightly clumsy behavior of those approaching foreigners for the first time, explained that the land is forbidden to her .

“I am forbidden to approach the barrier more than this,” she said. “Over there, there are the Israelis and they shoot. That land is prohibited (mamnua). It is my family’s land and is prohibited. Sometimes the Israelis shoot even when we are away from the barrier, but today it is quiet. Will you come back when we will harvest? For the harvesting, the whole family will come. There will also be my grandfather, uncles … a few days ago the bulldozers came and destroyed this plot of land that we had sown. Now it is destroyed.”

It gives a certain feeling to hear that horrible word mamnua from a young girl referring to her family’s land, “prohibited.”

In any case, on the 19th, fertilizer was sprayed fertilizer and there was no Zionist aggression.

Qudaih, however, was not entirely satisfied.

There was the land he had planted at the edge of the field, beside the barrier, which had been destroyed by occupation bulldozers. Even that was his land. The Zionists had no right to prevent him from cultivating it, to prevent him from reaping its benefits. He would be back the next day to reclaim it. That land could not be mamnua, “forbidden,” because it was his land, because he had also sown there, because the grain was used to make bread for his family, because the stems and bran are used to feed the sheep in his backyard , and they produce milk to drink and wool for warmth. No, not even the extreme limit of his land, 50 meters from the barrier, could be mamnua land.

So Qudaih promised that the next day he would return. He would come back with hoes to clear the ground , and with the donkey and plow for after sowing. If it was not under Zionist threat he would do it all with the tractor. But not here. This area is too close to the separation barrier. The Zionists would not let him use a tractor.

Qudaih’s case is not an isolated one. Indeed, one can almost say that he is lucky, because usually, it is impossible to approach the less than 300 meters from the separation barrier. This is not only to attack the freedom of movement of Palestinians in their own land, but also their right to work, and , even worse, their food self-sufficiency. The Gaza Strip’s population density is among the highest in the world and, with its demographic explosion in progress, the enclave is becoming increasingly dependent on external aid, unable to meet its own needs.

Qudaih reaches his land with his wife, his wife’s sister, and three of his sons. Wael, no older than ten years, is also among them. Some foreign activists accompany them. A donkey cart carries the seeds, hoes and plow; Qudaih leaves the cart at the edge of the field, farthest from the barrier, and carries everything by hand. The Zionists cannot claim they could not see what was on the cart, and nothing, neither the donkey nor the material it brought could pose a threat to Israel’s security or the safety of the soldiers of the occupation forces.

Qudaih and his sons aggressively work the ground with hoes. After about ten minutes a Jeep arrives. A few seconds after it stops, the Zionists shoot a few rounds of gunfire, without any warning, without any provocation toward them. Qudaih and his sons, including Wael, are not intimidated and continue to work. Their land cannot be mamnua just because a racist and unjust occupation force has decided so. Who is stronger, the occupation forces with all their weapons and armor, or these farmers armed with hoes? The older children continue to pave the way. Khaled holds the plow in the right position while Wael drives the donkey. It takes a long time to plow the land with the donkey, because it cannot pull a heavy plow, only a small plow, which must go back and forth several times.

While the farmers continue to work, several Jeeps pass on the other side of the barrier. They continue to shoot every now and then, just to remind that they are not gone, and that the land is mamnua. But Qudaih and his family do not move away until a soldier exits a Jeep. He remains a few minutes hidden behind a mound of earth, created to hide the occupation forces,, and then comes out shouting, in Arabic with a strong Hebrew accent, that they have to leave otherwise he will have shoot to hit them.

While it is nice to think that the presence of internationals helped ensure the soldier got the first shot in the air, and that it has discouraged them from directly targeting Qudaih, on the other hand, it is frustrating to realize that if this happens it is only because the world is fundamentally racist , and a witness from the West is more inconvenient than a Palestinian witness.

Meanwhile, the soldier continues to shoot. Not only single shots, but also bursts of gunfire. At first Qudaih continues to plow the land. Then he must desist: He has a family, he can not afford to get hurt, he needs be able to continue working. Then, half an hour after the first rounds of gunfire, all of us return to where the donkey had been left, with the cart, in safer territory.A few grains of wheat remain on a spot that Qudaih has not been able to plow, in a Palestinian land where a violent occupying force said mamnua.

Why does Israel treat Gaza farmers sowing wheat by hand as military targets?

28th December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

December is the time for farmers in the Gaza Strip to sow. But for those with fields near the Israeli separation barrier, it is highly dangerous. Sure enough, we were met by news that an 18-year-old was shot an hour earlier when he was checking his bird nets here in Khuza’a in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. To sell small birds can earn a few bucks, but also makes the hunter the hunted. This one was lucky. For him, a day’s hospital visit was enough.

That our presence and our yellow vests are desirable cannot be mistaken. Without any directive, some of us get up on the tractors as protection for the drivers while the rest form a row between the field and the Israeli barrier. Here the open fields were once interspersed with olive and other fruit trees, trees devastated by Israeli bulldozers. Now they can only plant wheat, a crop that grows without daily care.

The fields to be plowed were not large, and after they been sowed, we came closer and closer to the fence. We saw the barbed wire rolled out in large circles before the fence, the towers with machine guns, the large mounds of dirt and tanks coming up behind them, the military Jeeps that stop for a moment before continuing. But we also saw the green fields behind all this, where irrigation is permitted. The contrast is great.

The work takes us closer and closer to the barrier. Activists with yellow vests still sit on tractors, but the rest of us are no longer in a row. We are now very close to the fence, so we walk directly beside those sowing by hand. It would look funny at any time, in any other part of the world, but here it is deadly serious. Maybe 70-80 meters from the fence, the ground is completely disturbed by bulldozers and tanks. Deep traces of crawlers are everywhere, some of them made earlier in the week, we are told. The tractors cannot plow there, and the farmers are not trying, either. And they can only hope that the Israeli soldiers will not tear up their fields and plow down the wheat before they reap. It has happened in the past and will most likely happen again.

Done for the day, we walk back. Not a a single bullet has been fired at us this time. But I find one in the ground, one that didn’t find its target, and show my Israeli souvenir for the others. But no one reacts significantly. Someone strikes out with his arm over the fields: there are plenty of different kinds of ammunition fired here.

I try to understand how the soldier who shot early that morning reasoned. What made him shoot? Did he feet that he did his duty, believe that he erased a potential threat to the state of Israel? Did he get a pat on the shoulder from his commander, or backslapping by his peers in the barracks? When he comes home, will his proud mother serve him his favorite dish, and will his father open the forbidden cabinet to invite his to taste something stronger now then he has become a man?

But above all, I wonder what makes them think that farmers who sow by hand are really a threat forcing the soldiers to shoot them. What makes them so afraid that they take shelter in bulletproof guard towers or tanks. How the State of Israel can be protected by bulldozing Palestinians’ fields and destroying their crops. And how to get an entire nation to believe that these farmers are a threat to their existence. I do not understand it. But I understand that our presence can mean the difference between life and death.

Escalation of Israeli attacks on Gaza kills two, injures at least 14, over five days

27th December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

An Israeli military vehicle by the separation barrier near Khuza'a. (Photo by Silvia Todeschini) — An Israeli military vehicle by the separation barrier near Khuza’a. (Photo by Silvia Todeschini)

Early on the afternoon on Friday, 20th December, Israeli occupation forces killed a 27-year-old Palestinian, Odah Jihad Hamad, and wounded his brother Raddad, age 22, north of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reports that Israeli forces fired directly at them, although it was clear that the two civilians were collecting steel and plastic from the landfill near the separation barrier. “According to the testimony given by Raddad Hamad to PCHR, at approximately 12:00 on Friday, 20 December 2013, Raddad went with his brother ‘Odah to the landfill near the border area, east of Beit Hanoun, in order to collect plastics and steels for livelihood. At approximately 15:30, when the area was very calm, Israeli forces stationed at the borderline opened fire at them without any prior warning. As a result, Odah was wounded by a bullet to the head and fell onto the ground while Raddad was hiding in a low area. Raddad tried to reach his brother to rescue him, but Israeli forces opened fire at him to wound him by a bullet to the right hand. He immediately fled and managed to call the Palestine Red Crescent Society to send him an ambulance. The ambulance was delayed by Israeli forces till at approximately 16:15 when it obtained coordination through the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ambulance staff searched for ‘Odah to find him wounded and then transferred him to the Beit Hanoun Governmental Hospital. He was entered into the Intensive Care Unit, but a few minutes later, he was pronounced dead.”

Raddad said the ambulance found the body of his brother in another place closer to barrier. Israeli soldiers probably took him, to check if he was alive, then left his body there.

“He was just trying to eke out a living,” his mother said in the morning tent. “He wanted to earn some money to buy wood for our house, because the cooking gas finished,” one of his brothers said. To find cooking gas in Gaza is almost impossible now due to restrictions on imports and the closure of the tunnels.

In addition, three Palestinians were injured by Israeli gunfire near the al-Shohada cemetery east of Jabaliya. Mohammad Ayoub Hammouda, age 23, Dya Ahmad Al Natour, age 17, and Ali Hasan Khalil, age 20, were transported to Kamal Odwan hospital.

Hammouda works in a coal shop near the cemetery. He said he finished his shift and was walking away when he saw a group of men close to his shop. As he asked them to go away, Israeli soldiers started shooting. The shop is next to the barrier. Youth go there to throw stones at the soldiers, especially on Fridays. The Israeli forces begin to shoot without hesitation. Young Palestinians are injured so every week or two in this area. Hammounda worried that the youths near the store wanted to through stones, so he asked them to leave the area.

A bullet struck Hammouda in his right leg. The youths ran away. He lay on the ground 15 minutes before someone came to help him. An ambulance could not reach him, so a young man on a motorcycle carried him to one waiting near Abu Baker mosque. The shop where Hammouda works is 600 meters from the fence. He thinks that the shots came from one of the control towers placed along the border, in which there are automated machine guns.

An Israeli control tower by the separation barrier near Khuza'a. (Photo by Silvia Todeschini) — An Israeli control tower by the separation barrier near Khuza’a. (Photo by Silvia Todeschini)

The bullet that the doctors extracted from Hammouda’s leg during surgery is a 250 mm projectile. The bullet caused a fracture. The doctors have placed an external fixator in his limb. He will keep it for six months.

Hammouda’s family, from the Jabaliya refugee camp, has eleven members. He is the only one with a stable job. His father works occasionally. He earned 30 shekels, about six Euros or eight US dollars, a day. He said he would accept any salary because of unemployment.

The other two Palestinians suffered minor injuries in their lower limbs and were released from the hospital.

On the afternoon of the same day, two men were injured east of Khuza’a in the south of the Gaza Strip. Omar Sobh Qudaih, age 21, and Abdul Halim Alnaqa, age 23, were transported to the European hospital. Qudaih said that around 2:30 pm, they had been collecting beans about 500 meters from the fence. The bullet did not enter his limb. He suffered from superficial wound and needs antibiotics and dressing.

The following day, on Saturday, 21sr December, at about 7:30 am, Israeli soldiers fired at farmers and workers near the barrier Khuza’a. Ismael al-Najjar, a 21-year-old farmer, was wounded in his leg.

Al-Najjar thinks that the bullets were fired from control towers. He said he was with two other workers at about 600 meters from the barrier, and that he had been walking toward his chicken farm. He suffered from a superficial wound. A nurse said his condition is stable.

On Tuesday, 24th December, Israeli forces carried out a series of airstrikes hitting different locations in the Gaza Strip, and shelled different areas along the barrier.

Earlier afternoon, a contractor of the Israeli occupation forces had been killed by a Palestinian resistance group east of Gaza City. Israeli authorities declared that they would respond harshly against Gaza. Shortly afterward, a Palestinian civilian was wounded by Israeli army fire in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip. Government buildings were immediately evacuated.

Western media and others claiming the escalation began with the shooting of the military contractor should be reminded of the killing by Israeli forces of a young Palestinian collecting material from a landfill on Friday.

In the afternoon of 24th December, local sources reported two Palestinians had been killed, included a three-year-old child killed in a bombing of Maghazi in the center of the Gaza Strip. The number of injuries remains imprecise.

Shortly after the shooting of the contractor, Israeli forces reported they had killed a Palestinian along the northern barrier around the Gaza Strip, as Palestinian sources also did later. It later became clear the Israeli army had opened fire at a large tortoise moving slowly along the barrier. Its large size, and its bloodshed after an Israeli missile, led some to speak of a martyr. The occupation hits anything moving along the barrier, including a rare breed of giant tortoise.

The three-year-old girl killed in Maghazi was named Hala Ahmed Abu Sbeikha. Several members of her family were injured, included two children, Mohammed Abu Sbeikha, age six, and Belal Abu Sbeikha, age four.

In the morgue of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where members of the Abu Sbeikha family were hospitalized, her face was stained with blood.

Members of her family in the hospital included Busaina Abu Sbeikha, 27 years old, and the two wounded children.

“I had gone to visit them and we were seated on the first floor of the house,” an aunt said. “Two bombs fell in few seconds. It was about 3:30 to 4:00 pm. After the second bomb, we climbed to the second floor, where there our children, about ten of them, were. Busaina, with her children, was also there, helping them to study. We found Hala dead. Then we left the house, and a third bomb struck the two-story building, almost completely destroying it. Even the houses nearby were damaged by the bombing. ”

Women from the family told us that it is the first time that their house, in which 30 people lived, had been hit. “Even during the two wars, they never struck us or asked us to evacuate,” they said. Their house is located about 700 meters from the separation barrier east of Maghazi, in an area called Beheiri in the central Gaza Strip. It is a very quiet area.

“The Israelis said they had hit a site of the Palestinian resistance, but it is not true.” No resistance activity had been present in the area, they said.

Busaina Abu Sbeikha has undergone surgery for a shrapnel injury. Her children Belal and Mohammed lay on a bed in the same hospital room. Mohammed was almost asleep because of the painkillers, while Belal’s eyes were wide. He had no reaction when his his face and hair were caressed. Both children were injured by shrapnel.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital received around nine injured civilians that evening, in addition to the dead child.