3 Nov. '10: Firing at workers near the Gaza perimiter fence

 B'Tselem

Over the past year, B'Tselem has documented eleven cases in which soldiers fired at and wounded Palestinian civilians working in areas near the perimeter fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel. In these eleven cases, the gunfire struck civilians who, because of the lack of jobs in the Strip, were compelled to earn a living by collecting building materials for recycling. The lack of jobs has grown since Operation Cast Lead and following the continuing siege on the Strip.

In none of the cases was an attempt made to arrest the workers, so it is unreasonable to think they were suspected of engaging in actions aimed at harming security forces or Israeli citizens; rather, the gunfire was intended, apparently, to remove the workers from areas the army considers no-go zones. In addition to the eleven documented cases, B'Tselem and other human rights organizations know of dozens of other cases.

These cases join a series of instances documented by B'Tselem over recent years in which soldiers have fired at farmers and demonstrators in the vicinity of the perimeter fence, even when they did not present any danger. On 28 April 2010, Ahmad Dib, a young Palestinian, died of his wounds after being shot by the Israeli security forces on the border of the Gaza Strip while he was participating in a demonstration close to the perimeter fence.

Collecting gravel and other building materials is carried out primarily among the ruins of the Erez industrial zone near Erez Crossing. Following the disengagement, in 2005, the army classified the approximately 150-meter strip running from the perimeter fence along the border, which is situated inside the Strip, a no-go zone. After Operation Cast Lead, the army distributed leaflets stating the no-go zone had been increased to 300 meters from the fence. The leaflets state that, “Anybody who approaches endangers his life,” and that measures will be taken against persons who enter, “including by gunfire,” regardless of the person’s identity or actions. Contrary to the High Court of Justice’s ruling, in HCJ 741/05, that “special security areas” must be clearly marked, the no-go zones in the Gaza Strip are not marked in any way. B'Tselem’s investigation has revealed that some of the workers in the area have never seen such a leaflet; in any case, some of them are illiterate.

The sweeping declaration of extensive areas as no-go zones in which the army may open fire at any person found there, even if the person poses no threat, is unlawful. Indiscriminate firing at persons who pose no danger to security forces or to Israeli civilians breaches the central principle of international humanitarian law, the distinction between combatants and civilians.

Furthermore, more than half of the Palestinians injured in the eleven cases were shot when they were more than 300 meters from the fence, and therefore in an area outside the army’s declared no-go zone. In practice, any person working in areas along the perimeter fence, even if outside the no-go zone, risks his life.

Due to the secrecy surrounding the rules of engagement, B'Tselem does not know the orders given to soldiers operating along the perimeter fence. However, even if the orders forbid firing at the workers, many Palestinian civilians have in fact been injured by gunfire.

Israel has the obligation to safeguard the border area and prevent actions against the state, but its use of live fire to remove from the border area civilians who pose no danger is indiscriminate and disproportionately harms the civilian population. Israel must, therefore, stop this practice immediately.

B'Tselem has written to the judge advocate general and to the commander of the Gaza division, demanding that they examine the legality of the rules of engagement in the area of the perimeter fence, and that they immediately cease use of lethal means to distance civilians from the fence. In addition, B'Tselem has demanded that a Military Police investigation be opened in the matter of the eleven cases it documented, in which Palestinians working in areas near the perimeter fence were injured by soldiers’ gunfire in the past year.

	Testimony of Nidal al-Hasumi
	Testimony of Khaled Abu Harbid
	Testimoniesof 'Abd al-Hadi al-Kafarneh
	No-go zones along the perimeter fence in the Gaza Strip

IOF Fires an Artillery Shell east of Al Buriej Refugee Camp

3-11-2010

Al Mezan

At app. 7:30pm on Wednesday 3 November 2010, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened fire at the 'Security Buffer Zone' with an artillery shell east of Al Buriej refugee camp. The shell fell in an open area. No casualties or injuries were reported.

IOF Open Fire northeast of Wadi Gaza Village; One Person Injured

2-11-2010

Al Mezan

At app. 11:20am on Tuesday 2 November 2010, Husam Hafez Al Khaldi, 35, was admitted to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al Balah town. According to Al Mezan's field investigations, Al Kahldi was collecting old plastic materials from the solid waste dump northeast of Wadi Gaza village when the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) fired at him. Medical sources described his injury as moderate.

The IOF continues its attacks on Palestinian civilians near the border fence. These attacks come in the context of IOF’s accelerated attempts to enforce the security buffer zone inside the Gaza Strip. A week before this attack, the IOF opened fire on Palestinians who were collecting olives from their orchards east of Wadi As-Salqa village in Middle Gaza district.  

IOF soldiers fire at, wound two Palestinians including mentally retarded man

[ 02/11/2010 - 10:10 PM ]

KHAN YOUNIS, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) fired at a Palestinian man east of Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip, on Tuesday wounding him in his foot, medical sources reported. Adham Ab Salmiya, the medical services spokesman, told the PIC that the 40-year-old man is mentally retarded and was hospitalized with light injuries. In another incident, IOF troops shot another Palestinian east of Breij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip while collecting scrap plastic.

Gaza medics: Israeli forces shoot mentally disabled man

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- A mentally disabled man was shot Tuesday by Israeli forces east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, medics said.

Gaza medical services spokesman Adham Abu Silmiyya said the 40-year-old man was transferred to hospital.

An Israeli military spokesman said soldiers saw a Palestinian approaching the security fence in the area, and shot at his lower body after he failed to respond to warning shots. The army considers the area close to the border to be a combat zone, he added.

A UN study released in August noted that "Palestinians have been totally or partially prevented from accessing land located up to 1,000-1,500 meters from the Green Line (depending on the specific area)."

The man was the second mentally-disabled resident of the Strip to be shot by Israeli forces in the last week. On 26 October, a man with mental disabilities from the Ash-Shuj'aiyah neighborhood was shot in the leg near the Erez pedestrian crossing in northern Gaza.

IOF Shoots Palestinian east of Khan Younis

2-11-2010

Al Mezan

At app. 4pm on Tuesday 2 November 2010, medical teams from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society collected Mahmoud Mohammed Shreir, 34, who was injured in the As-Sunbati area near the separation fence east of Abasan town, east of Khan Younis. He was admitted to the European Gaza Hospital for medical treatment for an injury to his left ankle.

According to Al Mezan's field investigations, Shreir, who is mentally handicapped,  was near the separation fence when the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) fired at him. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) coordinated with the Israeli authorities to allow a Palestinian ambulance to reach the area and to collect the victim.   

Medics: Israeli forces shoot Gaza man on border

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian civilian in the central Gaza Strip east of the Al-Bureij refugee camp on Tuesday, medical officials said.

An unidentified 35-year-old man was transported to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the town of Deir Al-Balah, also in the central Strip. Medics said he was lightly injured with a gunshot wound to the shoulder.

An Israeli military spokesman said there was no army activity in the area.

Israel's army enforces a "buffer zone," off limits to Palestinians on the Gaza side of the Green Line, between 300 meters and one kilometer from the border. Palestinians are frequently shot when they venture anywhere nearby.

A UN study released in August noted that "Palestinians have been totally or partially prevented from accessing land located up to 1,000-1,500 meters from the Green Line (depending on the specific area)."

Twenty-five Palestinian civilians have been killed in the border area since the end of Israel's three-week offensive on Gaza in January 2009.

----

Israeli Soldiers Shot a Citizen in Gaza Strip

Tuesday November 02, 2010 14:10 by Sandy Khair - IMEMC & Agencies

On Tuesday afternoon, a Palestinian citizen was shot by Israeli soldiers in the east of al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, while he was collecting plastic from a garbage dump.

Medical sources reported to the Palestine News Agency, WAFA, that the citizen was wounded in the shoulder after being shot by Israeli troops stationed at the military sites, east of the camp, and was transferred to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir al-Balah, to receive treatment, where his injuries were described as mild.

Furthermore, the region has witnessed tension on Tuesday morning after the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, fired five mortar shells at the Israeli positions.

Witnesses: Israeli tanks operating in central Gaza Strip

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Several Israeli military vehicles crossed the Gaza border on Monday into the central Gaza Strip, witnesses told Ma'an.

Witnesses said Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered hundreds of meters into the village of Wadi Al-Salqa, south of Gaza City, roaming the area and bulldozing land.

The Israeli army regularly conducts similar operations in the area.

Palestinian worker injured in IOF shooting

[ 31/10/2010 - 10:05 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- A Palestinian worker collecting gravel east of Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip, on Sunday was injured when the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) opened fire at him. Adham Abu Salmiya, the spokesman for medical services, told the PIC that the 46-year-old man was hit with a bullet in his foot. He added that the man, who was hospitalized, was in moderate condition. IOF troops fire at workers in the northern Gaza areas on daily basis.

Daily shootings in Gaza's border zone

By Jared Malsin

UMM AN-NASSER, Gaza (Ma'an) -- A string of shootings of Palestinian workers, many of them only teenagers, in the northern Gaza Strip has brought renewed attention to a live-fire exclusion zone imposed by Israel on the Gaza side of the Green Line.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon removed settlers and most soldiers from Gaza in 2005, but Israeli forces still patrol the buffer zone, a swath of Palestinian territory along Gaza’s northern and eastern borders.

Many of those injured are desperately poor Palestinian workers who venture into the exclusion zone to gather gravel and other construction scrap from what remains of the former Israeli settlements in the north.

Defense for Children International documented 14 cases between March and October of this year of Palestinian youths under the age of 18 who were shot by Israeli forces while collecting gravel in the border zone.

While a few of these teens were shot as close as 50 meters from the border, others were 500, 600, even 800 meters from the border when the shooting occurred. The youngest of these children was 13, the oldest 17.

Twenty-five Palestinian civilians have been killed in the border area since the end of Israel's three-week offensive on Gaza in January 2009.

Every day the workers set out to the abandoned settlements of Nissanit, Elli Sinai, and Dugit, using donkey carts to haul sacks of small stones and gravel. These aggregates, used in construction, are among the items banned from Gaza by Israel, creating what one UN report called a "lucrative but dangerous market" based on recycling such materials.

Many of the workers who collect this scrap live in the town of Umm An-Nasser, known in Gaza as the Bedouin Village, a community of about 5,000 people on the edge of Beit Lahiya.

Sitting under a tent on the edge of the buffer zone, Israeli watchtowers in the distance, Fadi Abu Hashish, 26, says he does this dangerous, backbreaking labor simply because "there's no other work."

Abu Hashish said since he’s been old enough to work, the border with Israel has been sealed. His father and grandfather, he said, used to work picking citrus and vegetables across the border in the city of Ashdod, but because of Israel's closure of Gaza, these jobs are simply no longer an option.

Abu Hashish and other workers explained that once they collect the stones from the settlements they wash them, crush them into smaller parts, and then sell them. A team of three men, he said, would earn around 150 shekels ($40) per day.

And although the workers with their creaking donkey carts are visible to the Israeli soldiers monitoring the area from watchtowers, unmanned aerial drones, and other surveillance equipment, the shootings continue.

Fadi's cousin, Ahmad Toufiq Abu Hashish, was shot in the lower leg by Israeli soldiers while collecting gravel on 13 October. In an interview in his family’s Bedouin-type encampment on the edge of the exclusion zone, said the incident took place at 6 a.m., around 600 meters from the border.

"They fired just one shot. It wasn't a warning shot; it was a shot in my leg," he said. His cousin, Fadi, who was working with him that morning, confirmed that just one shot was fired.

As it's considered too dangerous for ambulances to venture into the border area, his brother and cousin laid him on their donkey cart, carrying him back to the Bedouin Village, where an ambulance transported him, unconscious, to Kamal Edwan hospital in Beit Lahiya.

Abu Hashish attended school until the 10th grade, and had been collecting scrap in the border area for about a month when he was shot. He said he earned about 30 shekels a day.

Physicians at Kamal Edwan informed him that his bones were shattered. After spending 20 days completely immobile in his family's camp, he is to return to the hospital to see if the leg has healed enough to install a prosthesis.

He told Ma'an that once his leg heals, he'll have no choice but to return to collecting gravel: "I have to go back. There’s no work."

Asked why he thought Israelis shot him, he said, "Really, I don’t know."

While Ahmad gave his testimony, lying on a blanket on the dirt floor of the tent, the sound of gunfire and exploding tank shells could be heard, coming from the border area.

Information gathered by aid agencies, the UN, rights groups, shows that Ahmad Abu Hashish's story is far from unique.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, eight Palestinians, all civilians, were shot by Israelis soldiers along the border in September alone. Six of these were workers collecting construction scrap. In a separate incident in the border area, Israeli tank shells killed a 91-year-old shepherd, and two boys, aged 16 and 17.

Bassam Masri, head of orthopedics at the Kamal Edwan hospital, told the British newspaper The Guardian earlier in October that around 50 people have been treated for gunshot wounds suffered in or near the buffer zone while collecting rubble in the past three months.

The Israeli military has publicly declared a 300-meter no-go zone on the Gaza side of the Green Line, but a UN study released in August, based on more than 100 interviews, shows that "Since late 2008, Palestinians have been totally or partially prevented from accessing land located up to 1,000-1,500 meters from the Green Line (depending on the specific area)."

These restrictions mean that 17 percent of the total land area of the already tiny Gaza Strip, and 35 percent of its agricultural land, is off-limits to Palestinian use. This in turn has contributed to a variety of humanitarian problems, further damaging the economy and directly affecting more than 113,000 people who live or work in or near the border.

Confusion about the boundaries of the exclusion zone persists. "Despite the potential for civilian casualties, the Israeli authorities have not informed the affected population about the precise boundaries of the restricted areas and the conditions under which access to these areas may be permitted or denied.”

Regardless of the actual size of the buffer zone, rights advocates say the ongoing shootings of civilians are unacceptable.

Mahmoud Abu Rahma of the Al-Mezan Center for Human rights told Ma'an: "Even if the Israelis announce a 300-meter buffer zone, people who go there in the daylight, and who do not appear to be a threat to the soldiers guarding the border fence, then there is no reason to shoot them."

"Shooting unarmed civilians who are only doing work is illegal under international law," Abu Rahma added.

Al-Mezan, along with the Israeli groups Adalah and Physicians for Human Rights, is preparing to demand that Israeli authorities investigate these shootings.

But, based on past experience dealing with the Israeli government, Abu Rahma noted, "we don’t have high hopes, but these are the tools available to us."

"As long as construction materials are not allowed in Gaza these people will continue to collect this scrap. We need some kind of protection for them," he also said.

In response to an inquiry from Ma'an, the Israeli military sent the following statement: "In light of the attempts of terrorist organizations to execute terrorist attacks around the security fence, in 2008 the IDF declared a buffer zone extending 300 meters west of the fence that would be closed to the Palestinian population. The IDF distributed leaflets written in Arabic, warning residents not to approach the fence."

"It is important to stress that the IDF acts in order to prevent harm to civilian populations in its operations and any complaint expressed regarding its soldiers' conduct will be taken into consideration and examined according to the existing policy, which it has declared repeatedly in the past."

"Since the beginning of 2010, 60 incidents of small arms shooting towards IDF forces, 34 incidents of improvised explosive device (IED) plantings, and 15 incidents of anti-tank missile fire were documented. A prominent incident is one in which an IDF officer, Maj. Eliraz Peretz, and soldier, Staff Sgt. Ilan Saviatkovski, were killed, and additional two soldiers were wounded, in an encounter with militants south of Kisufim crossing."

The military did not respond to a specific question asking why Palestinian civilians were shot when they were outside the 300-meter zone.