ISM Gaza Strip: announcement of farmers accompaniment action

"On Thursday 7th May at 7.00am, six Human Rights Observers from ISM Gaza Strip will be accompanying farmers in Laytamaat area near Khoza'a, east of Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza strip, as they harvest crops several hundred meters from the Green Line."

Palestinian citizen wounded in IOF tank shelling

Palestinian citizen wounded in IOF tank shelling

[ 04/05/2009 - 10:22 AM ]

KHAN YOUNIS, (PIC)-- A Palestinian man was injured when Israeli occupation forces fired tank shells at Abasan area east of Khan Younis district south of the Gaza Strip late on Sunday evening, medical sources reported. The sources told PIC reporter that the civilian was carried to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis city following the IOF shelling. They added that the IOF artillery earlier Sunday bombarded east of Jabalia, north of Gaza, with 20 shells without any casualties being reported. Palestinian injured in Israeli shelling in southern Gaza Strip Date: 04 / 05 / 2009 Time: 09:19 [Ma'anImages] Gaza – Ma’an – At least one Palestinian was injured on Sunday evening after Israeli artillery shelled an open area east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Dr Muawiya Hassanein, director of Ambulance and Emergency Services in the Palestinian Ministry of Health, said one injured man was delivered to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, having sustained moderate wounds. Separately, Palestinian sources and eyewitnesses said that Israeli forces fired machine guns again toward eastern Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. There was no word on casualties. The sources said helicopters were also seen flying over the area. Two Palestinians injured by military fire in the Gaza Strip Monday May 04, 2009 05:33 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies Palestinian medical sources reported that one Palestinian man was moderately wounded on Sunday at night by Israeli military fire targeting an open area east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Another Palestinian was injured in a separate attack in northern Gaza. FIle, Photo by Maan News Agency Dr. Moawiya Abu Hassanen, head of the Emergency Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, reported that medics evacuated the resident who was injured near Khan Younis, and took him to Nasser Hospital. Moreover, the Israeli army reported that soldiers opened fire and lightly wounded a Palestinian who approached the “security fence” in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. The wounded resident was moved to an Israeli hospital for treatment. Also on Sunday, the army shelled a number of areas east of Beit Hanoun, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip; no injuries were reported.

Israeli troops set fire to wheat and barley fields in Gaza

Date: 04 / 05 / 2009 Time: 12:58

[Ma'anImages]

Gaza – Ma’an – Israeli troops on Monday morning set fire to Palestinian-owned meadows of wheat and barley in Juhr Addik, in the southeastern Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses told Ma’an that the fire devoured several fields at the eastern border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, which Israeli forces have labeled a military zone. Firefighters hurried to the area and began extinguishing the flames.

Agriculture ministry condemns IOF burning of wheat, barley crops

[ 04/05/2009 - 07:32 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The agriculture ministry in the Gaza Strip on Monday denounced the Israeli occupation forces for targeting wheat and barley crops in eastern and northern areas of the Gaza Strip. The ministry in a statement by its public relations department said that the IOF troops recently escalated its targeting of farmers along the borders of Gaza firing at farmers at random to prevent them from cultivating their lands, their only source of income. It noted that the IOF gunboats also target fishermen and their boats, which greatly affected work of those fishermen. The military escalation against farmers in Gaza coincides with the escalation by IOF soldiers and Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, the ministry said, asking for an Arab and international intervention to protect the Palestinian farmers and to ensure their right to work in their lands. IOF tanks fired dozens of shells at farmers working in their lands late Sunday wounding one of them, who was hospitalized with shrapnel wounds all over his body, and starting fires in wheat and barley crops along with citrus trees. Another Palestinian citizen was injured when IOF soldiers fired at him east of Beit Hanun town, north of Gaza, and was kidnapped by those soldiers while bleeding.

IOF soldiers fire at Palestinian farmers

[ 03/05/2009 - 11:40 AM ]

KHAN YOUNIS, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces on Sunday opened machinegun fire at Palestinian farmers who were tending to their lands in Farahin area east of Khan Younis district, south of the Gaza Strip. Local sources said that the IOF troops recently escalated shootings at farmers to prevent them from reaching their farms, the sole source of income for their families. The Nasser Salahuddin Brigades, the armed wing of the popular resistance committees, said on Sunday it fired a mortar shell at an IOF patrol that ventured into east of Qarara to the northeast of Khan Younis before dawn Sunday. It said that the IOF unit withdrew after the incident and all NSB elements returned safely to bases. In the West Bank, IOF soldiers rounded up three Palestinians at dawn Sunday, the Hebrew radio reported.

IOF Detains Three Palestinians Close to the Separation Fence, East to Al-Maghazi Camp

3-5-2009

Al Mezan

On 3 May 2009, the IOF detained three Palestinians who were close to the separation fence, east to Al-Maghazi Refugee Camp, and took them to an unknown destination. Those detained were identified as:

• Yousif Ahmed Mobarak, 17,
• Ahmed As'ad Jouda, 19,
• Osama Adel At-Tawil, 18

On 22 April 2009, the IOF detained 15-year-old Yousif Nabil Mohammed Abbas and took him to an unknown destination. Yousif's whereabouts remains unknown

IOF Shells Eastern Jabalia with Artillery, Injuring Woman

3-5-2009

Al Mezan

At app. 1.30 on 3 May 2009, the IOF, Stationed on the eastern borderline, to the east of Al-Shuhada cemetery, which is located to the east in Jabalia town, fired several missiles that landed in an agricultural area close to the cemetery. 30-year-old Mona Selmi As-Sawarka was injured by shrapnel wounds to her chest as a result. She was reported to have sustained moderate injury.

Israeli army launches fire on Gaza farmers

Please wait ... Gaza, May 2, 2009 (RAMATTAN) – Israeli army Saturday opened fire on Palestinian farmers near the borderline in southeast Gaza, there were no casualties were reported, Palestinian medics and witnesses said. The Palestinian farmers were working in their fields in al-Faraheen area, east of Khan Younis city, when they came under fire from the Israeli army posts on the border. According to Palestinian security sources, machine gun fire was also recorded on the border line in northeast Gaza Strip and the east of Jabaliya town. Meanwhile, three Israeli bulldozers, backed by two tanks, rolled for a few hundred of meters into Beit Lahiya town, an agricultural community in northern Gaza Strip. Residents said the bulldozers leveled some groves and withdrew later on Saturday morning.

Palestinian farmer injured by Israeli fire near Khan Younis

Date: 02 / 05 / 2009 Time: 12:47

[Ma'anImages]

Gaza – Ma’an – Israeli fire injured a Palestinian farmer in the southern Gaza Strip village of Khuza’a east of Khan Younis on Saturday.

The 35-year-old Nafith Abu T’eima sustained light injuries following several gunshot volleys from a passing Israeli militarized jeep, and was hit in the neck with shrapnel. He was tending his lands at the time of the incident and evacuated to hospital.

Hundreds of farmers with agricultural land on the eastern border of the Gaza Strip have been unable to tend their fields because of incessant intimidation similar to Saturday’s incident. Dozens of farmers have left their land untouched since the Israeli war on the area and even before, fearing injury or death at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

Widowed and orphaned by Israeli drone strike

In Gaza

April 26, 2009, 2:18 pm
Filed under: Israel war on Gaza, please consider supporting

Naama Barbakh stands in the yard beside her farmhouse in southern Gaza’s As Shoka district, east of Rafah. She gestures to the ground and the surrounding area, pointing out where the dead and dying bodies of her husband and three of her sons lay after an unmanned drone missile strike on the morning of January 4th. On January 3rd, the Israeli land invasion had begun, with tanks and troops invading Gaza and occupying areas to the east of Rafah.

Barbakh, a mother of eight children, three martyred in the attack, explains what happened that morning.

“It was around 9 am. My daughter and I were preparing bread dough inside the house. My husband Abed (43) and three of my sons, Mahdi (20), Mohammed (19), and Yusef (15), were outside collecting and cutting firewood, as we had no cooking gas.”

She points to the bread hut where she would have used the cut firewood to heat the bread oven. The missile strike came before this was possible.

“I heard the explosion of the missile and ran outside to see where it had hit. Out front I didn’t see anything, so I ran to the back of the house. I didn’t know where the missile had landed, or that my sons and husband had been hit. I found their bodies covered in blood, along with the body of my nephew Mousa (17). Only Mousa was still alive, looking up at me. He tried to stand, then fell back down.”

The ruptured plastic container, pock-marked wall, and faint stain on the earth where 4 bodies lay indicate the area where the missile exploded.

“I phoned for an ambulance but was told it was too dangerous and they couldn’t reach the area. I ran out to the street screaming for help. By the time my neighbours came Mousa had also died.

Ahmed, one of her surviving sons, survived the attack although he was also ouside with his brothers and father.

“He was further away from where the missile landed. It covered him in dust, so initially he couldn’t see what had happened.”

When he’d wiped his eyes clear and saw his fathers and brothers strewn dead and dying, he became agitated. “He was hitting himself over and over when I saw him. Now he is ill, he doesn’t eat, can’t concentrate.”

Abed Hassan Barbakh, Naama martyred husband, was the family’s only source of income, working as a paid farm-labourer when there was work to be had. For Naama and her remaining five children -including children ages 10 and 11 and a 7 month old infant -there is little to hope for and much to lament. Without a bread-winner their situation has gone from poor to desperate.

*an otherwise idyllic and productive setting

The following portraits by Fida Qishta:

*Ali, now 7 months old

*Sharef, 10 years old.

*Amena, 11 years old.

*martyred father, sons, and nephew.

*Please considering supporting this family.

Qassam Brigades foil infiltration attempt

[ 01/05/2009 - 11:57 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

[...] Meanwhile, and in the southern Gaza Strip district of Khan Younis, Qassam Brigades fighters foiled an infiltration attempt by IOF troops to the east of the town of Khuza's where the infiltrating troops tried to take position on top of a hill in the area.

The resistance fighters who opened light machinegun fire at the infiltrating troops forced them to withdraw.

No casualties were reported on either side.