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Funerals in Gaza everyday |
A Palestinian child crying over the death of one of her relatives in Gaza |
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Palestinian families swiming at Gaza beach |
Palestinian children playing around a destroyed bus in Gaza |
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Protest to release Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails
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| Palestinian children swimming in a swiming pool that had been closed for many years |
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A one year old Palestinian baby has died shortly after crossing into Israel from northern Gaza Strip to receive treatment for a heart condition. Dr. Muawiya Hassanin of the Emergency and Ambulance Department at Al Shifa hospital said the baby, Ibrahim Abu Nahel, died after waiting for at least three hours to enter Israel at the Erez border crossing with Gaza.
Israel contests that the child was not delayed entry to Israel.
Yet, Dr. Hassanin responded to the Israeli allegations by saying: “Once he passed, the Israelis did not arrange for an ambulance, so he took a taxi to the hospital and he died in the taxi near Ashkelon City.”
In southern Gaza’s Rafah, eight Palestinian fishermen, including 5 youths, were fired on and arrested while fishing in the very limited permitted area off Rafah’s coast.
The Israeli navy opened gunfire on them, arresting them all. While no casualties were reported, considerable damage was inflicted on 15 fishing boats in the area, boats vital to the fisherman dependent on fishing, one of the last remaining jobs in economically-repressed Palestine.
Accumulating Rubbish Rots
All over Gaza, the rotting stench of garbage prevails: after still not receiving their salaries, municipality workers have been on strike, a halt in sanitation work which in turn poses a considerable threat of environmental and health crises in Gazan camps and cities.
Abu Eyad, a worker who began striking last week, refuses to clean the streets any longer. “I have my children waiting for me; I need to feed them. I have been volunteering all of my life, but my six kids need food and I need to come back home with a piece of soap to wash my hands and keep myself hygiene and healthy,” he said. “I can’t work for free forever. I have the right to live as others,” he added.
Freedom of the Press?
Journalists in Gaza held a protest Friday following the harassment and detention of 4 journalists by Hamas security forces at an earlier Fatah-led protest the same day.
Condemning the rising repression and arrest of journalists, protesters carried banners reading slogans like “No to Repression and Beating.” A local reporter was badly beaten and detained while photographing the protest.
In the West Bank Monday, dozens of reporters in Bethlehem united to further protest the attacks on Gazan journalists.
Demonstrations continued Tuesday back in Gaza city, once again calling for basic freedom of the press.
IOF Assassination Attacks Continue Unabated
A 43 year old civilian was killed in eastern Gaza on Monday. Israeli Occupation Forces fired on the farmer as he worked his land east of Al Bureij refugee camp.
Al Mezan reports that since the beginning of August alone, at least 22 Palestinians have been killed and 37 wounded by IOF assaults on Gaza. These include the following recent IOF attacks:
An August 20 Israeli air raid killed six when IOF targeted a car in central
Gaza. Three more Palestinians were killed by an IOF missile firing on a crowd of civilians in Khan Younis August 21. Later the same day, two children, 11 and 12 years old, died from missile fire in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza.
Education Denied, Public Health Denied
Israeli rule over Gaza is additionally crippling the society’s education sector. Israel’s refusal to allow trucks carrying paper to enter the Strip means that schools will not have the necessary textbooks and materials to begin classes September 1, denying over 200,000 children of their right to education.
Furthermore, Israel’s authoritarian border control is continuing to prevent the entrance of vital raw materials for necessary sanitation and water projects, meaning that Gazans will further be denied access to water.
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| A Palestinian engineer from the Gaza Generating Company is seen at an electrical power plant in Nusirat Camp |
no electricity in gaza |
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| Palestinian girl from Rafah refugee camp is lighting a candle during a power shortage in Gaza Strip |
palestinians carrying the body of Ihab Habeeb during his funeral in Gaza |
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| Palestinians carry the body Ihab Habeeb a Hamas member who was killed by Israeli strike |
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There is overwhelming misery as Gaza sinks into darkness. There has been no electricity for days and 34 year old Roya prefers to walk the dark, humid streets of Gaza City with her five children rather than sit at home with no electricity. "We are suffering like the majority of people in Gaza. What do you expect us to do when there is no electricity at home? Food is rotting in our refrigerator, and the children are scared to sleep when there is no light in the house," she said.
European Union and dark Gaza
Roya’s suffering is the result of the European Union’s refusal to finance the Israeli Dor Alon Energy Company which supplies fuel to the Gaza Power Generating Company. The EU has been paying for the Gaza Generating Company’s fuel supplies as part of its humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people. At a press conference in Ramallah on Sunday Dr. Al Maliki, the Fatah loyal Minister of Information, announced that the EU had stopped paying the money because Hamas had taken over the generating company. He also accused Hamas of "stealing the company's money." "The EU will not back down on its decision before Hamas backs down on its control over the power company," Dr. Al Maliki said. Hamas responded by saying that the allegations are untrue and Hamas has no control over the Company. Hamas also stated that officials within the company were involved in corruption and that they intended to bring these individuals to justice through the courts.
Power was cut for almost half of the 1.5 million population of the Gaza Strip on Friday night when the power company shut down three of its four generators after Israel closed the Nahal Oz fuel crossing. On Sunday the fourth generator was also shut down, further increasing the power shortage across the Gaza Strip, and adding to the humanitarian crisis as power supplies to essential services, as well as hundreds of thousands of ordinary Palestinian homes, were disrupted.
More Killings of Children and Adults
Israeli troops killed three Palestinians in the Southern Gaza Strip today. Islamic Jihad confirmed three members of their organization were killed. The attack came the day after an Israeli air strike in Gaza killed six Hamas members in the middle of the Gaza Strip. Israel claims the men were part of a squad that fired rockets into southern Israel. Dr. Muawiya Hassanin of the Emergency and Ambulance Department at Al Shifa hopsital said that the incident also resulted in the death of two children aged ten and twelve, and a third child aged ten was seriously wounded, and six other people were slightly wounded, all of them civilians.
Within the last 24 hours at least five Israel military strikes have killed twelve people and many more have been injured. It seems that the electricity shortages have increased the number of killings and attacks and there are so many funerals it is proving difficult to keep track of the numbers involved. On all fronts the situation continues to deteriorate within Gaza. The grave situation has resulted in a desperate appeal from the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) for the borders of the besieged strip to be reopened. Filippo Grandi, the agency's Deputy Commissioner General, warned in a press statement issued 9th August that within weeks Gaza could "be one hundred percent aid dependent." Even simple pleasures result in tragedy. Recently two children drowned whilst swimming off Rafah beach. The coastline has no rescue teams or life guards, so even the one respite from the violence of Gaza proves no escape for the Palestinian children and their families.
Farewell moment for a mother who lost two children
Hala, 6, and Wesam, 8 |
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| Mother of Wessam and Hala Kafarneh is lamenting the death of her children who were killed by Israeli shells while playing in the North of Gaza |
Mother of two children who were killed first moment when she saw their bodies in the hopsital |
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| Palestinian relatives lamenting over the bodies of Wessam Kafarna, 8, and his sister, 6, who were killed in the north of Gaza |
The body of Kafarna is in the morgue of Kamal Adwan hospital |
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The bodies of Wessam and Hala Kafrneh the children who were killed while playing with an explosive device left behind during an Israeli attack in the north |
Six died, twenty-nine injured by Israeli attack and counting:
Over one month ago the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) fired on Palestinian cameraman Imad Ghanem, shooting repeatedly at both of his legs as he lay defenseless and unarmed on the ground. Since that attack—one of Israel’s many bloody attacks on the Gaza Strip—this past July, Ghanem has been waiting for justice and medical rehabilitation. Reporters Without Borders Friday called for the results of the investigation into the multi-wound shooting to be published. Ghanem, whose legs had to be amputated as a result of the shooting, is meanwhile waiting for permission to leave the Strip to go to Egypt to be fitted with artificial legs. But this has been very difficult so far, due to the over two-month long Rafah border closing: no humanitarian cases are allowed in or out of the Gaza Strip.
“The only reaction from the Israeli authorities to our initial request for information, the day after the shooting, was to say that the origin of the shots could not be identified in the footage available, and to claim that Ghanem was ‘working among the terrorists’,” the organization for press freedom said. “We have not yet received a response from the Israeli government to our request for a thorough investigation.”
Reporters Without Borders added: “Ghanem, meanwhile, needs help. He is still waiting for a chance to travel to Egypt to be given prosthetic limbs. He also needs re-education sessions in order to be able to live normally and go back to work. We call on the Israeli and Egyptian authorities who control the Rafah crossing to act quickly so that he can receive the appropriate treatment.”
Ghanem, who was working for Al Aqsa TV, was seriously injured by the IOF army fire while covering an incursion to the east of the Al Bureij refugee camp in the middle of Gaza Strip, during which at least 12 Palestinians were killed. Although he was not wearing any item of clothing that said “Press” or “TV,” he was carrying a TV camera and he was with a number of fellow journalists.
Ghanem told Reporters Without Borders yesterday that the Israeli authorities have not tried to contact him for his version of what happened. He explained that he was not wearing any sign identifying him as a journalist because he did not have time to go to the TV station. “I went directly to the scene of the clashes, which were taking place near my home,” he said. “I did not want to risk arriving too late,” he said from his reclining position, still waiting—without any possibility—to receive medication.
Although the Association of Arab Doctors in Cairo has offered the immediate reception of Ghanem in Egypt for medication, including sponsorship by the association, Ghanem is no longer able to exit Gaza, even with the intervention of human rights organizations.
So Ghanem will have to wait. A journalist struggling to get words and photos out to the rest of the world, he nonetheless has no recourse for exiting Gaza: his journalist status will not help him. It might even make him more of a target, putting his life in danger as he reveals the truth, as is the case with many other Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Meanwhile, BBC reporter Alan Johnston issued a statement on Monday thanking Palestinian journalists for their support and protest during his captivity, saying, "I heard about the demonstrations staged by journalists and civil society organisations across the Palestinian Territories, as well as the petitions and the various other means used to keep attention focused on my plight. And your campaign was hugely successful in that it ensured that my case was always a priority in the eyes of the authorities. I am, as you can imagine, immensely grateful."
In other Gaza news, more than twenty Palestinians have been wounded in northern Gaza Strip violence, which, according to sources at Executive Force, erupted when Hamas forces arrested members and supporters of the rival Fatah movement who were shooting in the air during a wedding. Fatah, on the other hand, claims that the attack came as a result of the celebrants playing Fatah songs.
In Rafah, Israeli warplanes fired at least three rockets at the derelict control tower of Gaza's defunct airport last week. No casualties were reported. The once functioning international airport was shut down shortly after the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada in 2000. Since then, it has been used frequently as an Israeli Occupation Forces strategic military base during numerous IOF attacks on Rafah citizens and key infrastructure.
In Abasan, east of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Israeli helicopter missile fire early Tuesday morning has killed six Palestinians and wounded twenty nine, four of whom are reportedly in critical condition. Medical sources from Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital reported that: "the bodies arrived at hospital torn to pieces due to a direct hit from a missile." Many of the injured lay out of reach of Palestinian medical and rescue services due to intensive continued Israeli gunfire in the area and the firing at Palestinian ambulances by IOF tanks. The attack is still taking place in Khan Younies by tens of tanks and bulldozers invading the area.
Handcuffed and blindfolded
Palestinians are loaded off a truck after being arrested
by the Israeli Occupation Forces in Rafah
[this image is courtsey of AP]
Click on each image to view larger images
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| An Israeli tank patrolling next to Erez crossing in the north of Gaz while hundreds are being let into Gaza after nearly two months waiting |
Palestinians protest to release the leader of Popular Front for Palestine Liberation Ahmed Sadat from Israeli jails |
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| Palestinian woman is going through military area at Erez crossing in the north of Gaza |
Farwell moment, palestinian kids gathering around the body of Islamic Jihad member Nidal Al Daya who was killed during clashes |
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| Palestinian man carrying his bags nearly two months being stuck |
Palestinian father hugs his son after long time stuck at the Rafah border crossing |
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| Palestinian families are back from abroad through Eretz crossing only hundreds were let in but still thousands are stuck |
Members of Executive Force inspect a destroyed car following an Israeli air strike in Gaza |
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Palestinian woman is back through Erez after nearly two weeks waiting at the Rafah border and hundreds were let into Gaza |
Back to Gaza |
Wael Abu Warda, a 27 years old Palestinian man seeking treatment in an Israeli hospital for kidney failure, has died while waiting at the Erez Crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Israel had agreed to allow Abu Warda to travel from Gaza to an Israeli hospital near Tel Aviv for treatment, but when he arrived at the Erez crossing he was not allowed through, and died at the crossing, said Muawiyeh Hassanein, head of the ambulance and emergency department at Al Shifa hospital and also an official at the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
An eye witness said the trouble started when the Ministry of Interior’s Executive Force, which is Hamas affiliated and is no longer permitting shooting in the air at weddings and celebrations, a step taken to impose law and order in Gaza, went to arrest and confiscate the guns of Fatah members who had been shooting in the air at a wedding. A Fatah member took refuge at the house of Islamic Jihad, where clashes started between Hamas and Islamic Jihad members. Hamas gunmen chased four fleeing Jihad members into the Ard Al Ribat mosque, where they shot one of them, and wounded the three others.
A member of Fatah was killed in gunfire exchanges shortly afterwards, outside the mosque, said Al Shifa hospital medical sources.
