Friday, December 30, 2011

Witnesses: Israeli tanks shell eastern Gaza Strip

Residents of Khan Younis inspect damage to their land and houses after an
incursion of Israeli tanks. (MaanImages/Hatem Omar, File)
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli tanks on Friday opened fire on Zaitoun neighborhood south of Gaza City, witnesses said.

Locals reported hearing huge explosions. Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said no injuries had been reported.

An Israeli military spokeswoman was not familiar with the incident.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Israel shells northern Gaza

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- An Israeli tank fired on northern Gaza on Wednesday, without causing damage or injuries.

Forces launched an artillery shell which landed in an open area in the north of the coastal strip, a Ma'an reporter said.

An Israeli army spokesman said he was not familiar with the incident.

The blast followed two Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday evening, which killed one man and wounded ten others, as the coastal enclave marked the third anniversary of the Gaza war.

Israel launched a three week war on the Gaza Strip on Dec. 27, 2008.

Nearly 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the military assault, including over 300 children. The majority of those killed were civilians.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

13-year-old boy injured by Israeli gunfire in Gaza

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- A 13-year-old boy in the Gaza Strip was injured by Israeli gunfire on Tuesday.

Medical sources in the Gaza Strip said that Muhammad Talbani was shot in the foot and taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

Earlier on Tuesday, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, the al-Naser Salah ad-Din Brigades, said in a statement that Israeli forces had crossed the border in the central Gaza Strip.

The group said it had clashed with the soldiers.

An Israeli army spokeswoman had no immediate reports of the incidents.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Urgent Appeal (UA 4/10) - Children of the Gravel

 
Posted on: 15 Dec 2011 | Filed under:

Between 26 March 2010 and 13 December 2011, DCI-Palestine has documented 29 cases of children shot whilst collecting building material or working near the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel. In the cases documented by DCI-Palestine, the children report being shot whilst working between 30 to 800 metres from the border fence.
Urgent Appeal (UA 4/10) - Children of the Gravel

 

Demonstration in the no go zone, Beit Hanoun

posted on ISM webpage on 22 December 2011

by Nathan Stuckey

20 December 2011


Photo: Rosa Schiano, International Solidarity Movement - Click here for more images

Every Tuesday there is a demonstration against the occupation and the Israeli imposed no go zone that surrounds Gaza, stealing much of Gaza’s best farmland.  Today, it was unseasonably warm, it felt almost like summer.  We started our march from in front of the destroyed buildings Beit Hanoun Agricultural College.  Music played over a megaphone as we marched down the road into the no go zone.  As we got closer to the no go zone the music stopped, it got quiet.  Usually, when the music starts the chanting begins, but not today.  Everyone seemed to be lost in thought, perhaps pondering the green that has recently appeared in the no go zone.  The bulldozers haven’t come for many weeks to kill all life in the no go zones.  Perhaps they were remembering the olive trees, and orange groves that used to be here.  Perhaps they were thinking of the families that used to live in the destroyed houses that we were walking by.  Perhaps they were thinking of the houses that no longer exist, the houses that have been completely erased by the Israeli bulldozers.
We entered the no go zone and went to the flag that we left here several weeks ago.  It flies in the breeze, a reminder that this land is Palestinian, that while the people of Gaza might have been driven from their homes they have not yet been erased by the Israeli military like the orchards that used to grow in the no go zone.  We took the flag down.  We marched further into the no go zone, to land which no one had been to since May of 2000.  We made our way across the no go zone, land scarred dozens of times by the blades of Israeli bulldozers, to a small hill.  We climbed the hill and we planted the flag.  The ground was hard, it has not rained lately, but we found a soft spot and drove the flagpole into the earth.  We piled rocks around its base to strengthen it.  We looked out over 1948, the land which many residents of Beit Hanoun had been driven from 63 years ago.
We began to walk back to Beit Hanoun.  Through the no go zone, on land no one had been to in many years.  As always, when you go new places in Gaza you see new destruction which you had no inkling of before you stumbled upon, but it was always there, another untold story in the crimes of the occupation.  We paused by some rubble that I had seen many times on our marches into the no go zone, I never knew what it had been.  It was a well.  It had of course been destroyed by an Israeli bulldozer, all of the trees which it used to water ground under the treads of the same bulldozer.  The well is dry now.  Perhaps someday it will be repaired and orchards will once again thrive on this land.  Someday, after the occupation finally disappears into the pages of history.  Until then, it stands alongside the hundreds of Palestinian villages destroyed in the Nakba, alongside the thousands of homes destroyed by Israel, as a mute reminder of the crimes of Israel.

Updated on December 22, 2011

PCHR weekly report 15/12 - 21/12/2011: 1 civilian dies trying to escape from gunfire, 1 worker shot and injured

extracts from PCHR weekly report 15/12 - 21/12/2011:


A Palestinian civilian was killed when he fell down from his bicycle as he was attempting to escape Israeli gunfire in the Gaza Strip.
A Palestinian civilian was wounded by Israeli gunfire in the northern Gaza Strip. 

Friday, 16 December 2011


At approximately 23:40, Israeli soldiers stationed at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east of al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip opened fire at Palestinian agricultural land in the vicinity of sewage basins in the east of the camp.  Due to the intense shooting, the guard of basins, Majed Mahmoud al-Nabahin, 39, attempted to escape on motorcycle towards the west.  While he was driving the motorcycle, he fell down and died, as he suffered from hemorrhage. 

Tuesday, 20 December 2011







At approximately 16:20, Israeli soldiers positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east of Beit Hanoun town opened fire at open areas to the east of al-Farta area, nearly 800 meters from the border.  No casualties were reported. 

At approximately 23:30, Israeli soldiers positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east of Beit Hanoun town opened fire at open areas to the east of al-Boura area, nearly 700 meters from the border.  No casualties were reported.

Wednesday, 21 December 2011




At approximately 09:30, Israeli soldiers stationed on observation towers at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel fired at a number of Palestinian civilians who were collecting wood, iron and scraps of construction materials in Hammouda area in the northern Gaza Strip.  As a result, Hamza Jamal Barakat, 19, from al-Zaytoun neighborhood in the southeast of Gaza City, was wounded by two bullets to the left shoulder and foot.  

  

Israeli shelling east of Khan Younis

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces shelled on Friday morning east of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses in the al-Zana area said they heard three explosions that were a result of Israeli shelling in an open area.

Gaza medical official Adham Abu Salmiya told Ma’an there were no injuries.

Incursion reported near Khan Younis, no injuries


GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Israeli army vehicles crossed over the border of eastern Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip early Thursday, firing intensively, local residents said.

Onlookers of the brief incursion told Ma'an that seven Israeli tanks in addition to several bulldozers crossed a few dozen meters inside eastern Khan Younis near the Khuzaa, Abasan and Farahin towns.

In addition to the presence of helicopters overhead, gunfire from a military tower at the center of the border fence was overheard particularly in the town of Abasan. No injuries were reported.

Israel's army did not immediately return calls.

Palestinian worker hurt by Israeli gunfire

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- A Palestinian worker has been injured by Israeli gunfire in the north of the Gaza Strip, local residents said Wednesday.

The 19-year-old worker was collecting stone aggregates when Israeli forces opened fire toward him, injuring his left leg, in the northern Bedouin village in Beit Lahiya, locals said.

He was taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital where doctors said his injuries were moderate.

Israel's army did not immediately return a call late Wednesday.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

IOF Opens Fire on Residential Houses Northeast of Beit Hanoun

20-12-2011

At approximately 11:30 pm on Tuesday 20 December 2011, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened sporadic fire on areas located in the Shurab family area, street number 15, and on residential houses in the Al Amal neighborhood northeast of Beit Hanoun in North Gaza district.  The shooting lasted for about 30 minutes.  No casualties or injuries were reported.

IOF Opens Fire East of Beit Hanoun

20-12-2011

At approximately 4:20 pm on Tuesday 20 December 2011, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened heavy fire at the Al Furtta and Qatbaniya areas east of Beit Hanoun in North Gaza district.  No casualties or injuries were reported.

 

Israeli forces detain 3 men trying to cross Gaza border


GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces detained three men overnight Monday in the central Gaza Strip after they reportedly approached the security fence separating Israel and the coastal enclave.

Witnesses said that the men were trying to cross the border illegally to work in Israel. Soldiers fired flares near the border and deployed forces before detaining the men, who were from al-Bureij refugee camp.

An Israeli army spokesman said that three suspects were identified trying to cross the security fence and were arrested by soldiers and transferred to security custody for questioning.

A man in his 20s was seriously wounded last week after being shot by Israeli soldiers east of Gaza City.

The man was hunting for birds in the Shujaiyeh neighborhood, medics said. The Israeli army said a "suspicious individual" had approached the security fence.

Israel maintains a sea, land and air blockade of the Gaza Strip, restricting the import and export of goods and the movement of people.

The blockade has been described as collective punishment by rights agencies and the United Nations.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Palestinian Dies Northeast of Al Bureij Refugee Camp

16-12-2011

At approximately 11:40 pm on Friday 16 December 2011, the body of Majed Mahmoud An-Nabaheen, 39, was admitted dead on arrival to Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al Balah.  According to medical report, there was abrasion around the nose and hemorrhaging around the nose and mouth.
According to eyewitnesses, at approximately 11:00 pm on Friday 16 December 2011, Israeli occupation forces positioned near the separation fence northeast of Al Bureij refugee camp opened fire on the northeast quarter of the camp.  An-Nabaheen was working near his house at the time.  He is a guard at the waste pools of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Limited IOF Incursion West of Erez Crossing

15-12-2011

At approximately 8:20 am on Thursday 15 December 2011, seven Israeli tanks accompanied by two armored bulldozers moved under heavy covering fire about 200 meters into a destroyed area west of Erez crossing in North Gaza district.  Bulldozers razed lands near the separation wall.  At approximately 9:20 am on the same day, the forces withdrew from the area.  According to Al Mezan’s field investigations, in the past days the Israeli occupation forces have attacked rubble collectors in the same area.

PCHR weekly report 8/12 - 14/12/2011: a man and 2 children wounded by airstrike, 1 farmer wounded, 1 child worker wounded, 1 bird hunter wounded, 1 incursion

extracts from PCHR weekly report  8/12 - 14/12/2011:

[only attacks near the areas of buffer zone concerning civilians are mentioned]

Sunday, 11 December 2011


At approximately 02:40, an Israeli warplane launched four missiles on a vacant house belonging to a leader of the Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, Imad 'Aqel, 42.  The two-storey house is located behind 'Ein Jalout School in al-Zaytoon neighborhood in the east of Gaza City.  The four missiles directly hit the roof of the house, damaging it.  A neighboring 250-square-meter, two-storey house belonging to Mohammed Mahmoud Badwan, 57, in which 17 individuals live, was heavily damaged.  Because of the shrapnel scattered in the house, Ashraf Mohammed Mahmoud Badwan, 35, received shrapnel wounds to the face, and two of his children were also wounded in the incident: Sondos, 10, who was seriously wounded by shrapnel to the head, and Mohammed, 8, who was wounded by shrapnel to the right leg.  The two children were wounded while they were asleep on the asbestos contaminated second floor.

Tuesday, 13 December 2011

 

At approximately 06:30, IOF moved nearly 300 meters into the east of al-Boreij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, under the cover of intense shooting.  As a result, Mohye al-Din Mas’oud Abu Jalal, 49, was lightly wounded by a bullet to the chest when he was on his agricultural land, nearly 700 meters away.  IOF moved back to the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel at approximately 11:00, after having leveled areas of Palestinian land.

At approximately 07:30, Israeli soldiers stationed on observation towers near Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the northern Gaza Strip opened fire at a number of Palestinian workers who were collecting scraps of construction materials in the industrial zone, northwest of Beit Hanoun.  As a result, Nidal Khalil Hamdan, 14, from Beit Hanoun, was wounded by a bullet to the left shoulder.  The workers were nearly 500 meters away from the crossing.  

At approximately 11:05 on Tuesday, 13 December 2011, Israeli soldiers stationed on observation towers at Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the northern Gaza Strip fired at a number of Palestinian civilians and international solidarity activists who demonstrated in the east of Beit Hanoun town. According to Saber al-Za’anin, Coordinator of the Local Initiative in Beit Hanoun, at approximately 10:30 on Tuesday, about 30 demonstrators, including a number of international solidarity activists, gathered in front of the Agricultural School in Beit Hanoun.  They moved towards the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel to protest to the establishment of a buffer zone by IOF along the border.  When the demonstrators got as close as to 100 meters from the border, IOF fired them.  The demonstrators left the area and no casualties were reported. 



Wednesday, 14 December 2011 


At approximately 09:00, Israeli soldiers positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east of Gaza City fired at Mohammed Mahmoud al-Biltaji, 20, from al-Shuja’iya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City, while he was hunting birds nearly one kilometer away from the border.  He was wounded by a bullet to the right foot.   



Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Nedal, 14 years old, collected metal to support his family – they shot him from behind

by Rosa Schiano

13 December 2011 | il blog di Oliva


Nedal Khaleel Hamdan (Photo: Rosa Schiano, il blog di Oliva)

This morning at the Eretz border in Beit Hanoun, Israeli soldiers shot a 14-year-old boy, Nedal Khaleel Hamdan. We went to the hospital to meet him. We found him sitting on the bed with his left shoulder bandaged, surrounded by his family.
Nedal was collecting metal along with other boys in an area near the border. Often young people his age collect metal, then sell it to earn some money and help their families as well. At about 8:30 in the morning, Israeli soldiers started shooting at them; Nedal and the other fled, but while they were running Nedal was hit in the shoulder by a bullet.
He was transported on a cart to Balsam Hospital, which provided first aid, and was then transferred to Kamal Odwaan Hospital in Beit Hanoun. There the doctor told us: “We made an incision to remove the M-16 bullet. There is a total lack of supplies in the emergency room. We have to ration everything. People get a lot less medicine than they need. ”
Nadal’s recovery time will be a month. Fortunately, there have been no complications.
When we asked Nedal why he works there, told us: “We try to sell the metal to give our families the money they need to live.”
His father, Khaleel, has 16 children, and cannot work due to a problem in his legs. Lack of money forces his children to work in these dangerous areas, even if they do not earn more than 10 shekels for the sale of the metal. Sometimes his family depends on this money. Khaleel adds: “We live in a situation of injustice in Palestine and suffer from this occupation, but we want to work and need some way to make money. We hope that this occupation and the siege end soon and we can have a better life.”
How long can such crimes continue? Here they fire on children, while the world keeps its eyes and ears closed.

Updated on December 14, 2011

---------

13-12-2011

IOF Opens Fire at Rubble Collectors in Vicinity of Erez Crossing; One Child Injured



At approximately 7:15 am on Tuesday 13 December 2011, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) positioned in concrete watchtowers opened heavy fire on Palestinian civilians who were collecting scrap and rubble from a destroyed area in the vicinity of the Erez crossing.  The civilians were about 450 meters away from the separation fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel when the IOF opened fire at them.  As a result, Nedal Khalil Attiya Hamdan, 14, sustained a bullet wound in the left shoulder.

According to Al Mezan’s field investigations, Hamdan and his relatives were collecting scrap in the area.  After Hamdan was injured he was carried on a donkey-drawn cart to Balsam Hospital, then referred to Kamal Odwan Hospital.  Medical sources described his injury as moderate.  Hamdan lives on Qarman street in Beit Hanoun.

----------


Voices from the Occupation: Nedal H. - Injuries
 

Posted on DCI Palestine: 14 Dec 2011 | Filed under:

Name:                        Nedal H.
Date of incident:     
13 December 2011
Age:                            13
Location:                   Erez industrial zone, Gaza
Nature of incident: 
Shot while collectinig scrap metal

On 13 December 2011, a 13-year-old boy from Gaza is shot in the shoulder whilst collecting scrap metal, about 400 metres from the border with Israel. 

Thirteen-year-old Nedal describes his family’s financial situation as “very harsh”. “I was very weak at school,” says Nedal, “and had to drop out last year after only finishing the fifth grade because I failed three times. I dropped out and tried to learn a trade to help me support my family and myself, but I failed.”
“Ahmad is my cousin and my best friend. He is like me, a drop-out. Everyday he collects scrap metal from Erez and earns 30 to 40 shekels, depending on how much he collects,” says Nedal. “I saw Ahmad yesterday evening, 12 December, and told him I would like to join him in collecting scrap metal from the industrial zone, and share the 15 shekel rent for the donkey cart. He told me to be ready the following morning at 7:30 am.”
The next morning the two boys set off to collect scrap metal from the industrial zone as agreed. “We approached Erez Crossing and got off the cart and started walking and looking for scrap metal, about 400 metres from the border fence,” recalls Nedal. “We were not alone. There were around 30 collectors my age. I also saw two Israeli observation towers on the border, but I did not see any soldiers inside.”
“We stopped the cart on the paved road and walked to the industrial zone to the west. Suddenly, shooting erupted from one of the observation towers. I was about 40 to 50 metres west of the paved road, and about 400 metres away from the border fence. The collectors started running because of it. I myself got scared. I turned around and started running away from the border, and headed back to the cart that was parked to the southeast. I kept running fast because the shooting was intensive,” says Nedal. “I ran about 10 metres when I felt something hitting me on the back of my left shoulder, and I felt my left arm had been paralyzed. I looked at it and saw my shoulder bleeding, and realised I had been injured by bullets from the observation towers.”
Another scrap metal collector carried Nedal to a nearby horse cart and he was transferred to Balsam Hospital, and then to Kamal Odwan Hospital. Doctors at the hospital operated to remove the bullet and told Nedal that he would be hospitalised for two to three days. “I will never go back to the industrial zone. I went there to collect scrap metal to help my family, and I got shot on the first day. It is a very dangerous thing to do, and I do not recommend it,” says Nedal. “As for Ahmad, I was told he went back to the industrial zone to get the donkey cart.”

13 December 2011

Planting the seeds of resistance and steadfastness in the no go zone

posted on ISM webpage on 14 December 2011


by Nathan Stuckey


13 December 2011

Photo: Beit Hanoun Local Initiative - Click here for more images


We set off from in front of the Beit Hanoun Agricultural College under the flags of half a dozen countries, but listening to the music of Palestine.  Every Tuesday, for three years, we set off from here into the no go zone, that three hundred meter strip of death which surrounds Gaza.  We are a diverse group, the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, and other Gazans.  We march down the road into the no go zone, the tension builds, we play music, we chant.
Today, as we approached the buffer zone a shot rang out.  Israeli soldiers shooting into the air, shooting from the concrete towers which line the border of the prison that Israel has created in Gaza.  We do not stop, we keep walking into the no go zone.  The no go zone is different this week, it is green.  Usually it is a dead brown, every couple of weeks Israeli bulldozers come and uproot any plants that manage to sprout, nothing is allowed to live in the no go zone.  It is hard to imagine that this used to be an area of thriving orchards, that their used to be houses here, they have all been destroyed, not just destroyed, erased like the hundreds of Palestinian villages which most of the people of Gaza are refugees from were erased after 1948.  Just as Palestinians have refused to be erased by the Nakba, the Naqsa, the Occupation, or the war on Gaza, the no go zone steadfastly refuses to become a place of death, green plants emerge from the land after every rain.
We march all the way to the giant ditch which scars the no go zone.  We plant a Palestinian flag.  It joins the other flags we have left in the no go zone, the orchard of olive trees which we planted here last month.  Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative spoke, he vowed to “continue the popular resistance despite the bullets of the occupation, resistance would continue until the liberation of Palestine.”  Almost on cue he was answered by the bullets of the soldiers, shots began to ring out, not at us; the soldiers were shooting into the air.  We calmly walked back to the road to Beit Hanoun; we still had work to do.
On the road to Beit Hanoun we met a tractor.  We had brought the tractor to farm, to plant the land of the no go zone.  Israel claims that the no go zone extends only three hundred meters, but in reality the danger extends much farther, just before the demonstration today the Israeli’s had shot a fourteen year old boy from Beit Hanoun while he gathered scrap metal to help support his family, he was not in the no go zone, it didn’t matter, they shot him anyway.  We drove the tractor into a large patch of unfarmed land next to the road.  We lowered the disc and began to turn the soil.  The thistles that grew here were turned under the red soil of Gaza.  Young men pulled stones from the field; they were left by the cactuses which mark the border of the land.  As soon as the soil was turned young men spread out and began to plant it, barley.  When the rains come, the barley will sprout, in four months we will harvest it.  We will harvest it under the guns of the Israeli army, just as Palestinians have done for sixty four years, steadfast in their refusal to abandon their land.  We are planting not only barley, but also resistance, steadfastness.

Updated on December 14, 2011

-------------

13-12-2011


IOF Opens Fire at Weekly Demonstration in North Beit Hanoun

At approximately 11:05 am on Tuesday 13 December 2011, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) stationed in concrete watchtowers along the northern separation fence between Gaza and Israel opened heavy fire on a peaceful demonstration of the Popular Campaign against the Buffer Zone.  30 Palestinians and two international solidarity activists had moved to within roughly 150 meters of the northern border, reaching an agricultural area, when the IOF opened fire at them.  No casualties or injuries were reported in this incident.
According to Al Mezan’s field investigations, at approximately 10:30 am on Tuesday 13 December 2011, 30 Palestinians and two international solidarity activists, accompanied by a tractor, walked in a march from the Agricultural Secondary School to a point near the border in order to guard a plot of 10,000 square meters of unplanted land about 300 meters away from the separation fence. The demonstrators planted the area with barley, and left the area at approximately midday.
 

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

New report documents children under fire in Gaza


13 December 2011 | AlertNet


Children walk past a poster welcoming freed Palestinian prisoners in Qalandiya refugee camp near the West Bank city of Ramallah, October 19, 2011. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
Twenty-eight cases of children being shot at by the border fence between Israel and the Gaza strip whilst gathering building materials like gravel, or working by the fence, have been documented by Defence for Children International in their latest report ‘Children of Gravel’.
The shootings reportedly took place between March 26 2010 and October 3, 2011, according to Defence for Children International (DCI)-Palestine Section . According to DCI, the Israeli soldiers often fire warning shots to scare off workers by the border. Their report also states that ‘these soldiers sometimes shoot and kill the donkeys used by the workers, and also target the workers, usually, but not always, shooting at their legs.’
‘That children are in a situation where they need to work to help their parents meet basic family needs is an infringement of their rights. That children are in the line of fire to meet these needs is appalling,’ says World Vision Programme Director for Gaza, Siobhan Kimmerle.
Forty percent of Gaza’s population is unemployed and 80% of the population is completely reliant on foreign assistance. In addition, Israeli restrictions limit the amount of construction material entering the Gaza borders for reconstruction and development. As a result, many workers collect gravel and sell it to builders to use for concrete. The children among the gravel collectors earn about US$8-$14 per day to help support their families.
The North Gaza governorate is one of the most impoverished governorates in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) and the neediest in the Gaza Strip. In comparison to the other governorates in the Gaza Strip, North Gaza’s food insecurity rate is the highest at 60% and the unemployment rate the second highest at 39%. World Vision works with communities in North Gaza to help improve family livelihoods and help ensure their children are cared for and protected.
Currently there are 2,411 registered children in World Vision’s North Gaza Area Development Programme, with 7,061 beneficiaries and as many as 22,594 indirect beneficiaries. World Vision’s programming in North Gaza includes rural development, job creation, and child empowerment projects.
The blockade of the Gaza Strip, including Israeli restrictions on items entering the borders, continue to harm Gaza’s deteriorating economy. The Israeli military continues to restrict Palestinians’ access to the land on the Gaza side of the Israeli-Gaza border, maintaining that anyone that comes within 300 metres of the borders puts his/her life at risk, which has had a negative impact on the physical security and livelihoods of Palestinians living in that area. DCI’s documentation indicates that children have been shot at while being between 30 to 800 metres within the Israeli border fence.

To read the DCI’s Urgent Appeal-Children of the Gravel, please visit http://www.dci-palestine.org/documents/urgent-appeal-ua-410-children-gravel.

World Vision continues to work for the well-being of children and advocate for an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. World Vision believes that this conflict threatens the lives of all Palestinian and Israeli children, and one of the greatest obstacles to achieving fullness of life for each and every child is the ongoing conflict and the perpetuation of violence.

Sources:

1) Defence for Children International-Palestine Section, Urgent Appeal-Children of the Gravel, available at
http://www.dci-palestine.org/documents/urgent-appeal-ua-410-children-gravel-1

2) Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, Gaza Strip, available at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gz.html. Last accessed on November 25, 2011.

3) Oxfam International, Crisis in Gaza, available at http://www.oxfam.org/en/emergencies/gaza. Last accessed on December 9, 2011.

Limited IOF Incursion East of Al Bureij Refugee Camp; One Person Injured

13-12-2011

At approximately 6:30 am on Tuesday 13 December 2011, three Israeli tanks accompanied by three armored bulldozers moved under heavy covering fire about 300 meters into the eastern part of Al Bureij refugee camp in Middle Gaza district, where the bulldozers razed land near the separation fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel.  As a result of the incursion, Muhyy Ad-Din Mas’oud Abu Jalal, 49, sustained a bullet wound in the chest while he was about one kilometer away from the separation fence.  At approximately 11:00 am on the same day, the Israeli occupation forces withdrew from the area.

 

Sunday, December 11, 2011

IOF Attacks House in Az-Zaitoun Neighborhood; Three People Injured, Including Two Children

11-12-2011

At approximately 2:40 am on Sunday, 11 December 2011, Israeli aircraft fired about four missiles at the house of Emad ‘Aqel, a leader of the Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement.  The two-story house is located in the Az-Zaitoun neighborhood behind Ein Jalout School, east of Az-Zaitoun neighborhood, in the east of Gaza City.  As a result, the house was damaged.  The residents were not at home when it was attacked.

An adjacent house belonging to Ashraf Badwan, 35, was partially damaged.  The two-story house is about 250 square meters in area and hosts about 15 family members.  As a result of the attack, Ashraf sustained a shrapnel wound in the face; his daughter Sundus, 10, sustained a critical shrapnel wound in the head; and her brother Mohammed, 8, sustained three shrapnel wounds in the right leg.

Israeli missile hits poultry farm in north Gaza

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- An Israeli missile hit a poultry and livestock farm in Beit Hanoun on Saturday, a Ma'an correspondent said.

The farm in northern Gaza belonged to Ramadan Abu Ghazaleh. A number of animals were killed and extensive material damage was caused to the structure.

Violence has flared between Gaza and Israel after Israeli airstrikes killed an Islamic Jihad fighter on Wednesday, and two affiliates of Fatah and Hamas' armed wings on Thursday.

A further airstrike on Gaza City on Friday morning hit a site of Hamas' armed group, and flattened a nearby house killing the owner; the man's 12-year-old son was pronounced dead hours later.

The man's wife and five other children were wounded, medics said.

Militants responded with a barrage of rockets that struck southern Israel on Thursday and Friday, without causing injuries.

Cairo is trying to renew a truce to restore calm between its neighbors, Egypt's ambassador to the Palestinian Authority Yasser Othman told Ma'an on Thursday.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

PCHR weekly report 1/12 - 7/12/2011: 1 incursion, several attacks

extracts from PCHR weekly report  1/12 - 7/12/2011:


Friday, 02 December 2011


At approximately 16:30, Israeli soldiers stationed on observation towers near Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the northern Gaza Strip opened fire at a number of bird hunters nearly 300 meters away.  The hunters were forced to leave the area and no casualties were reported. 

Saturday, 03 December 2011  


Also at approximately 17:00, IOF positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east of Rafah opened fire at a number of Palestinian [farmers]  near Gaza International Airport in the southeast of Rafah.  No casualties were reported.

Monday, 05 December 2011


At approximately 22:00, Israeli soldiers positioned on observation towards at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel to the north of Beit Hanoun town opened fire at space areas located to the south of the agricultural school.  The shooting continued for 20 minutes, but no casualties were reported. 

Tuesday, 06 December 2011



At approximately 15:30, IOF moved nearly 300 meters into the east of al-Shuja’iya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City.  They leveled areas of Palestinian land.  During this incursion, IOF clashed with members of the Palestinian resistance, but no casualties were reported.  IOF moved back to the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel at approximately 02:30 on the following day. 

Wednesday, 07 December 2011 


At approximately 07:30, Israeli soldiers stationed on observation towers at Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the northern Gaza Strip opened fire at a number of Palestinian workers who were collecting scraps of construction materials from Erez industrial zone.  The worker fled from the area and no casualties were reported.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Commemorating the anniversary of the First Intifada in the no go zone

by Nathan Stuckey
6 December 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza


Photo: Rosa Schiano - Click here for more images

Twenty four years ago, on December 9, 2011 a revolution began.  The revolution began in Gaza, it was the First Intifada.  After twenty years of Israeli occupation Palestinian resistance exploded in full force.  Boycotts, demonstrations, tax refusal, all of these were the strategies of the Intifada.  Over one thousand Palestinians would be killed by Israel during the Intifada;over one hundred thousand Palestinians would go to prison during the course of the Intifada.  For six years the Intifada burned, Palestinians were united in a massive nationwide campaign of popular resistance.
Today, in Beit Hanoun, we marched in remembrance of the beginning of the Intifada.  We gathered near the Beit Hanoun Agricultural College, the same place we have gathered every Tuesday for the last three years.  We were about forty people in all, activists from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, and people from around Gaza.  Bella Ciao echoed over the loudspeaker, that was our signal to begin marching.  We marched down the road toward the no go zone, the three hundred meter strip of land along Gaza’s border where Israel murders any who dare to enter.  Just as we refuse the occupation, we refuse the no go zone, every Tuesday, we march into the no go zone.  We began to chant, “No to the Occupation”, “from Beit Hanoun to Bil’in we are all resistance”, and “A steadfast people will never be humiliated”.
As we reached the edge of the no go zone, we paused.  Many members of the demonstration wrapped their faces in keffiyehs and empty bottles and sling shots were taken out of bags in honor of the weapons of the First Intifada, the revolution of stones.  We march into the buffer zone, our hearts cheered by the Palestine flag that still flies where we planted it several weeks ago, reminding everyone, that this land isn’t naturally dead, that even if the bulldozers come and destroy everything, as they do every couple of weeks, resistance will always rise up anew.  We stop by a giant piece of rubble that we have painted with a Palestinian flag.  Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative speaks, “this march commemorates the martyrs of the first Intifada, the glorious uprising of stones which began 24 years ago.  The revolution continues, the Intifada and the resistance will continue until the Palestinian dream of an independent state with its capital as Jerusalem and the return refugees is achieved.”  We march back to Beit Hanoun.  Next Tuesday, we will march into the no go zone again if the occupation has not ended by then, but our resistance, will continue every day until the end of occupation and the return of the refugees.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

IOF Opens Fire at Shepherds in Rafah

3-12-2011

At approximately 17:20 on Saturday 3 December 2011, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened sporadic fire at a group of Palestinian shepherds who were herding animals on land near the Gaza International Airport in the Ash-Shawka village, east of Rafah. No casualties or injuries were reported, but the incident scared the shepherds and forced them to abandon their work.

Friday, December 2, 2011

IOF Opens Fire at Palestinian Bird Hunters near Erez Crossing

2-12-2011

At approximately 16:30 on Friday, 2 December 2011, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened fire at Palestinian bird hunters in Nisanit, the evacuated settlement northwest of Erez crossing. The victims were hunting birds approximately 300 metres from the northern border fence when the IOF opened fire at them. No casualties or injuries were reported but the incident scared the hunters and they left the area immediately.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in the no go zone

by Nathan Stuckey
30 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza


Photo: Rosa Schiano - Click here for more images

Today, Tuesday, November 29, 2011 is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.  This day commemorates the racist and colonialist proposal of the United Nations to partition Palestine in 1947.  All over the world, people stood in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle today.  In Beit Hanoun, today, like every Tuesday for the last three years, the popular struggle raised its voice against the occupation.  Against the no go zone which surrounds Gaza, which makes the refugees of 1948 and 1967 who live in Beit Hanoun refugees once again, the no go zone which throws them off their land and destroys their houses and orchards.  Against the siege on Gaza which is designed to destroy them, their hopes, their dreams, their economy, their future.  Under the unceasing gaze of observation balloons and drones, in the shadow of a giant concrete wall studded with gun towers which seem to come out of a futuristic horror film but which is in fact is the present and is no movie, it is Gaza.  Against the occupation which can only remind the world of George Orwell’s prediction of what the future would look like, “a boot stamping on a human face, forever”.
We gathered in the shadows of the ruins of the Beit Hanoun Agricultural College, not 100 meters away from the graves of the Beit Hanoun Massacre of 2006.  The Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the International Solidarity Movement, and Palestinians from around Gaza gathered to march into the no go zone.  We were buoyed by the knowledge that around the world today people were raising their voices in support of Palestine, in support of peace, justice and freedom.  The megaphone crackled to life, “We Will Not Go Down” by Michael Heart.  In a sea of flags from around the world, Palestine, Ireland, Italy, India, Malaysia and many others, we began our march towards the no go zone.
We enter the no go zone and begin to release balloons with Palestinian flags attached to them.  The balloons will float over the walls that surround Gaza, they will take our message farther than our megaphone and our voices can.  Perhaps they will be caught in the branches of an orange tree planted by the fathers or grandfathers of the men gathered here, on the land that they were expelled from.  There is no risk that they will be caught in the branches of orange trees before they cross the wall, all of those trees have been bulldozed by Israel when it created the no go zone, the zone of death which surrounds Gaza. In the short story “Men in the Sun” by Ghassan Kanafini some Palestinian laborers die in a water tank while waiting to cross a border.  The driver of the truck is left lamenting, “Why didn’t they say anything” as they died.  We are not silent, even if are voices are lost in the space of the dead zone which Israel created around Gaza, these balloons will carry our message to the outside.  Let no one say that they did not know, that we did not say anything while Gaza is strangled to death.
Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative spoke to the crowd.  He called upon the people of the world “to isolate Israel internationally and to exert pressure in all its forms until the end of the occupation of Palestine.”  Radhika Sainath from the International Solidarity Movement also spoke, “Today the entire free world is against the settlements, the wall and the Israeli occupation.  We will continue our work in Palestine with Palestinian activistsuntil we succeed in bringing freedom and justice to Palestine.”  Their voices were echoed by the chanting of the crowd, against the occupation, voiced demanding peace, justice and freedom, voicing pledgingsteadfastness in the struggle to the end the occupation.

Updated on November 30, 2011

Witnesses: Israeli army vehicles enter Gaza

Israeli tanks patrol the border of northern Gaza. (MaanImages/Moti Milrod, File)

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli army vehicles entered the Gaza Strip early Wednesday as soldiers fired from military towers by the border, witnesses said.

Four bulldozers, three tanks and several other military vehicles were seen leveling farm land in the Juhor al-Dik and Maqbola neighborhoods near al-Bureij refugee camp, onlookers told Ma'an.

Meanwhile, several helicopters hovered in the area and soldiers stationed in army watchtowers fired gunshots, they added.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the vehicles were "on routine activity" in the Gaza Strip.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Thanksgiving in Gaza

by Radhika Sainath
25 November 2011 | Notes from Behind the Blockade

Layla and her daughters with the turkey in Faraheen
Layla and her daughters with the turkey in Faraheen (Photo: Radhika Sainath, Notes from Behind the Blockade) - Click here for more images

It all started with a simple question from Jabar, a Palestinian farmer from Faraheen, during Eid al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice.
“Is there an American eid (holiday) where you slaughter an animal?” he asked Nathan, a colleague here in Gaza, a few weeks ago.
Thanksgiving and turkeys came to mind.
And so, I found myself celebrating “Thanksgiving,” Gazan-style, this afternoon in the small, southern Gazan village.
Nathan painstakingly put together a variety of ingredients over the past couple of weeks to make a proper meal: turkey, baked beans, sweet potatoes, biscuits and chocolate chip cookies! We had to nix the stuffing, gravy was too difficult, and pie, out of the question.
After six weeks of falafel (delicious as it is), I was really looking forward to Nathan’s Midwestern cuisine. But would it all come together given Gaza’s regular power outages, Israel’s recent shooting at farmers in the area and the lack of key ingredients due to the siege?
We rose early to accompany farmers in Faraheen to their land within Israel’s 300 meter  ”buffer zone” – or “kill zone” – as Palestinians here frequently call it.
The week had not been a good one, and I was concerned that our belated Thanksgiving would turn into Black Friday.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army had shot live ammunition in the air when our group went with farmers to the buffer zone in nearby Khuza’a.
The day before, the Israeli army had called the Palestinian Office of Coordination and told them that they “wanted to shoot” us and twenty Palestinians while we were in northern Gaza nonviolently protesting the Israeli occupation, the buffer zone, and 63 years of dispossession in the buffer zone.  The Palestinian Authority frantically looked for the phone number of Saber Zanin, the organizer of the weekly Beit Hanoun protests and told him, “We are trying to ask the Israelis not to shoot you. They wanted to shoot you and kill you.”
And yesterday, 3 nautical miles of the coast of Gaza, an Israeli naval warship chased our small humanitarian boat, the Oliva, along with several Palestinian fishing boats, towards the shore for no apparent reason.
Today just couldn’t be good.  Would our Gazan Thanksgiving look more like the original Thanksgiving — a symbol of land seizure, dispossession and ethnic cleansing — than the delicious turkey-filled version I was hoping for?
I rose early, gulped down a cup of sugary tea and dry floury date cookies that Jabar’s wife Layla made before heading out to the buffer zone. The sky cleared and I heard Israeli drones overhead.
On the way to the buffer zone, we met 26-year-old Yusef Abu Rjeela, the farmer who want was hoping to sow wheat on his land.  We asked him what he wanted to do if the Israelis started shooting.
“Stay on the land,” he said. If the Israelis shot in the air, he didn’t want to run. And if they shot at us, well…
We continued onward, and my cell phone rang.  It was Nathan. “I put the beans in the pressure cooker for 30 minutes and they’ve become bean soup!” he exclaimed. “Layla says I shouldn’t have soaked them and used the pressure cooker.”
“Stay calm,” I said. “Do you have more beans?” He did. We continued on our way.
Five of us foreigners donned our yellow vests, and accompanied Yusef and another farmer as one sowed wheat and the other plowed the land. The drones went away.
All seemed quiet on the eastern front.
An Israeli military tower stood in the distance. A white balloon equipped with an aerial surveillance camera flew overhead. The former farmland was dry and brown from years of Israeli bulldozing and tank traffic.
After a while, we made bets on when the Israelis would start shooting. It was 11:25 a.m., and I put in for 11:45 a.m., another person for 11:50 a.m. Hussein, a Palestinian university student who came with us, didn’t think the Israelis would shoot at all.
At noon, the farmers had finished and we all started to walk back to the village. Yusef explained to us the lawsuit his family had filed against the state of Israel for murdering his younger brother the day after Operation Cast Lead ended in January 2009. His father, who had witnessed the murder, had gone to Israel to testify.
As we left the buffer zone, I congratulated Hussein on being right about the shooting. Then we heard it — Israeli army gunfire in the distance. The time: 12:05.
We promptly head back to Jabar’s house in the village. There, Nathan was immersed in a whirlwind of preparation.
“Get the baking soda out of the bag!” he directed.
“You mean baking powder?” I asked him, looking the plastic bag he had brought from Gaza City.
“No, soda.” There was no baking soda. We were in for a biscuit disaster. Moreover, Layla and four of her five children were swirling around the kitchen, unsure of these strange American preparations.
Beans with sugar? In the oven? Nathan opened the ancient iron contraption, and held out a spoon for me. I stuck my tongue out and slurped up the brown deliciousness.
“Is it good?” asked Layla, suspiciously. “Is Nathan a good cook? Can you cook better?”
Zacky ikthir,” I responded. Very tasty. “Not quite done,” I said to Nathan. “I can cook, but maybe Nathan is better than me,” I added to Layla. She didn’t seem convinced.
Nathan shooed everyone away, but we stayed in the kitchen, it was the warmest room in their small, cement block, metal sheet-roofed house. And, I was clearly the only one cut out for the role of taster. Layla turned to more important questions.
“You’re a lawyer, can you sue Israel for me?” she asked. “All our problems come from Israel. When I was 14, they shot me in the hip. Then they bulldozed our olive trees and took our land. What can we do?” I hadn’t realized that Layla’s limp stemmed from about 1980, when the Israeli army entered her school and shot her as she tried to help a wounded friend.
She turned away to take the turkey out of the pot. The oven wasn’t big enough for a whole bird, which was only sold in pre-cut pieces. All in all, it was a delicious lunch, and no one got shot. And that, is something to be thankful for.

Updated on November 30, 2011

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Reporter: Israeli military vehicles cross into north Gaza

An Israeli tank patrols near the Erez border crossing, between Israel and
the Gaza Strip (MaanImages/Wissam Nassar, File)

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli military vehicles crossed into the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, a Ma'an reporter said.

Sporadic fire was heard, but no injuries were reported, after a number of vehicles entered the Abu Samra area near northern Gaza town Beit Lahiya, he said.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said she had no record of the incident.

---------
24-11-2011

Limited IOF Incursion North of Beit Lahiya

At approximately 01:00 on Thursday 24 November 2011, about 15 Israeli tanks accompanied by armored bulldozers moved about 300 metres into Burat Abu Samra area north of Beit Lahiya, in North Gaza district with sporadic gun fire.  Bulldozers leveled lands that had been razed before. The IOF were still in the area as this news was being published at 13:00 on Thursday, 24 November 2011. No casualties or injuries were reported, but the gunfire scared farmers and they abandoned their farms.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

IOF Opens Fire at Eastern Part of Deir Al Balah

23-11-2011


At approximately 11:00 on Sunday, 13 November 2011, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened fire in the eastern part of Deir Al Balah. No casualties or injuries were reported.

IOF Opens Fire at Palestinian Bird Hunters near Erez Crossing

23-11-2011


At approximately 9:00 on Wednesday, 23 November 2011, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened fire at Palestinian bird hunters in Netzarim, the evacuated settlement northwest of Erez crossing. The victims were hunting birds approximately 300 metres away from the northern border fence when the IOF opened fire at them. No casualties or injuries were reported but the incident scared the hunters and they left their work activities immediately.  

IOF Opens Fire at Ash-Shoka Village in Rafah

23-11-2011

At approximately 09:20 on Wednesday, 23 November 2011, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), stationed at a military watchtower near the Karm Abu Salim (Kerem Shalom) crossing east of Ash-Shoka village, opened fire at Palestinian houses and agricultural fields close to the nearby Gaza International Airport.
At approximately 21:20 on Tuesday, 22 November 2011, the IOF also opened fire in the same area. No casualties or injuries were reported.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Meanwhile in Gaza

by Radhika S.
15 November 2011 | Notes from Behind the Blockade


Beit Hanoun locals march to Buffer Zone - Click here for more images

I awoke today with the news that the NYPD was clearing out Occupy Wall Street and that Israeli tanks were shelling “northern Gaza.”  In the West Bank, Palestinian Freedom Riders, inspired by the US freedom riders of the 1960s, were getting ready to board segregated buses to occupied East Jerusalem.
Here in Gaza, we head to Beit Hanoun for their weekly nonviolent protest in the buffer zone.  For three years, Palestinians in the north have been marching into the barren, no-man’s land which encircles the inside of the narrow strip like a slowly-tightening noose.
We arrived around 11 a.m. and gathered in front of a bombed-out house down a dusty road leading to the border. This was my second buffer zone protest. At my first, two weeks ago, the Israeli army had fired a few shots from the military towers at the border.  I wondered what would happen today.  As a foreigner, I was to don a reflective fluorescent yellow vest and walk in front of the Palestinians, which seemed to provide them a degree of solace.  They seem to think that the Israelis were less likely to use lethal violence when Americans, Italians, and Brits walked with them.
I was not so sure.
About two dozen people waving Palestinian flags marched down the dusty path towards the buffer zone.  The landscape reminded me of home, of California, with its thorny tumbleweeds and cactus.  It was hard to believe that only ten years ago fruit orchards and olive trees filled this area. But Israel had bulldozed it all, claiming it needed 300 kilometers of Gaza’s most fertile land, but in reality taking more.
Onwards we walked, the Palestinians singing songs and holding a giant Palestinian flag. I wondered what was in store for us today as Israel’s concrete wall and military towers became visible. Would they shoot in the air first? Or would they shoot at us? If they shot us, would they shoot someone standing in the middle first (as I was) or someone standing off to the side?  Would they shoot us in the legs?  And how good was their aim?
We past a small farm and the family waved at us. They were very brave to have stayed, I thought.  Another farm had stuck a large white flag in the dirt in front of their house, as I had seen other families near the buffer zone do. Other farm houses had clearly been abandoned.
We were getting close to the buffer zone now, and the journalists that had come along moved from the front to the back. They didn’t want to get shot either. I started to imagine what it felt like to get shot.  Excruciatingly painful, I decided.
At that point, I recalled that I had never made a will. If I died intestate, what law would apply? I had just moved from California to New York, but was I officially a resident of New York? And how would Gaza factor into it all?  Was Gaza like the West Bank, where Israel applied a strange patchwork of Ottoman, Jordanian and Israeli military law as it pleased? Not that I really had much to bequeath.
We continued on, and I could see the Palestinian flag we had planted in the earth two weeks before. It was a windy day, and the flag billowed beautifully. The Israeli army had not shot it down.  About 50 meters behind it loomed the wall and the military towers.
“Our flag is still there!” I exclaimed to Nathan, an American volunteer walking next to me.  The Israelis had used the last Palestinian flag as target practice.
“Do you want to sing the star-spangled banner?” he joked.  I smiled, I hadn’t intended to make the reference. Yasser Arafat had symbolically declared Palestinian Independence 23 years ago today, on November 15, 1988.
We stopped, well before the flag, at a large cement block painted red, black and green. Sabur Zaaneen from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, the leader of the march, had thought the area to be more dangerous in recent days.
He gave a brief speech on Palestinian independence and the countries that were standing in the way of Palestinian freedom. As he spoke, I stared at the Israeli towers and the wall, the Israeli flags on top and of the land beyond it on the other side. I wondered if at that moment, Palestinians were attempting to board Jewish-only buses in the West Bank, facing violence from Israeli settlers not unlike the KKK in the Jim Crow south.
The speech ended and the Israelis had not shot at us.  A few of the young men broke into a dabke dance, a Palestinian line dance of sorts, as one of them played the tabla and sung, and the women clapped in rhythm. I didn’t know the words but I clapped along as well.
We head back, and I had the star-spangled banner stuck in my head. “O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
One day, Palestine too would be free.

Updated on November 16, 2011

Independence Day in the Buffer Zone

by Nathan Stuckey

16 November 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza


Photo: Hama Waqum - Click here for more images

Twenty three years ago today the Palestinian declaration of independence was released.  Written by Mahmoud Darwish, and unveiled to the world by Yasser Arafat in Algiers where he was living in exile like millions of other Palestinians.  Today, in Beit Hanoun, we, the Local Committee of Beit Hanoun, the International Solidarity Movement, and local citizens of Beit Hanoun marched into the no go zone just as we have done every Tuesday for the last three years.
We gathered on the road beside the Agricultural College, raised Palestinian flags, and started to sing as we marched.  We were about fifty strong.  Men and women, Palestinians and Internationals, marched together to celebrate independence.  As we crested the hill that lies on the border of the no go zone the person next to me commented how nice it was that the flag that we had placed in the no go zone was still there, the previous flag had been used by Israeli soldiers for target practice, we had found it laying in the dirt, it’s staff smashed by a bullet.  Our flag was still there, the flag that has been flying in the face of Israeli bullets for sixty three years, through the Nakba, the Naqsa, the Occupation, the Intifada’s, the flag still flies.
We marched into the no go zone, this area of life transformed into a place of death.  The scarred earth that so little is allowed to live in, ripped up every couple of months by IDF bulldozers.  Beyond our flag is giant concrete fence lined with towers full of guns.  Above us a giant white balloon to watch our every move.  Demonstrations in Gaza are not met my soldiers with batons, or tear gas, or even rubber bullets, they are met with live fire, sometimes with tank shells.
We paused by a giant concrete block that we had painted with the Palestinian flag in an earlier demonstration.  Sabur Zaaneen from the Local Initiative of Beit Hanoun climbed onto the block to speak.  He vowed that the Palestinian people “continue the popular resistance and the struggle, until the end of the Occupation and the Palestinians gained their freedom and independence.”  His message to the world was that “we invite you to work with us in the struggle for freedom in Palestine.  Free people of the world must reject political blackmail and bribes from Israel and America as we recently saw in the United Nations.”  His speech was followed by a release of balloons into the no go zone and debka dancing.
Palestine is still not free, the Occupation continues.  Declarations of Independence are not reserved for peoples that are already free; they are statements of desire, of hope.  The United States released its Declaration of Independence only one year into its war for independence, fighting would continue for another three years.  Palestine released its declaration of Independence one year into the first Intifada.  The struggle has continued for twenty three more years, it will continue until victory.

Updated on November 16, 2011

Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Buffer Zone in the Gaza Strip (September 2011)

PCHR

Friday, 16 September 2011 00:00
The so-called “buffer zone” is a military no-go area that extends along the entire northern and eastern perimeter of the Gaza Strip's border with Israel, inside Palestinian territory, as well as at sea. The precise areas designated by Israel as “buffer zone” are unknown; changing Israeli policy is typically enforced with live fire.

Last Updated on Thursday, 27 October 2011 10:12

Friday, November 4, 2011

Occupation opens dams flooding Palestinian homes in Abasan


[ 04/11/2011 - 10:38 AM ] 



GAZA, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation authorities opened water dams at Sanati to the east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip causing the flooding of Palestinian homes in the town of Abasan al-Kabira.
The mayor of Abasan, Mustafa al-Shawwaf, told Safa news agency 8 homes in the town were flooded to a height of 70 to 90 cm, and that residents of those homes are being evacuated.
Many streets in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, were also flooded as a result of torrential rain that  fell all night in the area.
Medical sources that nine homes were badly flooded in the Amal neighbourhood and that residents of those homes were rescued.
PIC correspondent said that a medical centre near the Red Crescent headquarters in the city was also flooded.
No casualties were reported until the preparation of this report, while the civil defence department said that its teams are helping in pumping the water out of the affected homes.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

PCHR weekly report 27/10 - 2/11/2011: 1 shepherd & 1 girl wounded, houses destroyed or damaged, trees uprooted, 1 incursion, airstrikes

extracts from PCHR weekly report 27/10 - 2/11/2011:

3 Palestinian civilians, including a child, were wounded by IOF in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli war planes launched 17 air strikes against targets in the Gaza Strip.
A country house, a room and two containers were destroyed and a number of houses, shops and fields were damaged.

In the Gaza Strip, IOF conducted a limited incursion into the central Gaza Strip, during which they leveled areas of Palestinian land.

Thursday, 27 October 2011


At approximately 03:30, Israeli warplanes fired two missiles at a 50-square-meter agricultural house belonging to Saleem Jalal al-Farra, 41, in Wadi al-Salqa village to the east of the central Gaza Strip town of Deir al-Balah.  The house was completely destroyed and 10 olive trees belonging to al-Farra and 5 nearby houses were damaged. 

At approximately 14:30, Israeli soldiers stationed on an observation tower near Karm Abu Salem (Kerem) Shalom crossing at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel fired at Mustafa ‘Aayesh Ermailat, 33, who was grazing animals on the land of Gaza International Airport in the southeast of Rafah, nearly 800 meters from the border.  He was wounded by a bullet to the left hand.

Saturday, 29 October 2011


 
 At approximately 21:45, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a number of activists of the al-Quds Brigades, south of Wadi al-Salqa, a village located east of the central Gaza Strip town of Deir al-Balah. The missile landed near a house, and wounded an activist. Additionally, 15-year-old Rawand Tayseer Abu Mughassib, was lightly wounded in the left hand while she was on her way to her grandmother’s house in the area, according to her father. Three houses were also damaged in the attack.

 Sunday, 30 October 2011 


Also at approximately 03:00, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a farm in al-Qaraman Street in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun.  The missile made a crater, and damaged two nearby farms:

1. 60 olive and citrus trees were uprooted, and water pipelines and a part of the fence were destroyed in a farm belonging to Sofian Mousa Hamad; and
2. 45 olive and citrus trees, water pipelines and a part of the fence were destroyed in a farm belonging to ‘Abdul ‘Aziz Mustafa Hamad.

Additionally, a greenhouse belonging to Isma’il Mustafa ‘Abdul Rahman was damaged.

Tuesday, 01 November 2011



At approximately 10:00, Israeli aircraft hovering over the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis dropped warning flyers onto the town.  The flyers warned Palestinian civilian not to get as close as to less than 300 meters from the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, otherwise they would be endangered, including being shot.  A map was placed under the warning.  On the back of flyers, there was a message warning civilians of those who launch rockets.  It also included a phone number and an e-mail address asking civilian to provide information via them. 

At approximately 11:15 on Tuesday, 01 November 2011, Israeli soldiers stationed on observation towers at Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the northern Gaza Strip opened fire at a number of Palestinian civilians and international solidarity activists who demonstrated near the crossing.  According to Saber al-Za’anin, Coordinator of the Local Initiative in Beit Hanoun, stated that once the demonstrators got as close as to 70 meters from the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel and placed the Palestinian flag on a hill, Israeli soldiers opened fire at them.  No casualties were reported.  

Wednesday, 02 November 2011 



At approximately 06:00, IOF moved nearly 150 meters into the east of Wadi al-Salqa village to the east of the central Gaza Strip town of Deir al-Balah.   They leveled areas of Palestinian land.  They redeployed outside the area two hours later and no casualties were reported. 

At approximately 08:30, Israeli soldiers stationed on observation towers at Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing in the northern Gaza Strip opened fire at Palestinian workers who were collecting scraps of construction materials in the industrial zone, southwest of the crossing.  The worker fled and no casualties were reported.