*Palestinian fishing boats damaged by Israeli firing attacks. [photo: Emad Badwan ]

GAZA CITY, Jul 1 (IPS) – “They told us ‘go west or we will shoot you’,” says Ashraf Sadallah. “Initially, we refused, so they began shooting very close all around our boat.”

At 6am on Jun. 16, Sadallah and his brother Abdel Hadi Sadallah, in their early twenties, went roughly 400 metres out to sea off the coast of Sudaniya in Gaza’s northwest. “We wanted to bring in nets we had left out the night before,” says Sadallah.

Their small fishing boat, known as a hassaka, was in Palestinian fishing waters when three Israeli navy boats approached the brothers.

“After they opened fire on us, we paddled about three kilometres west where a larger Israeli gunboat was waiting. When we were about 30 metres from the gunboat, Israeli soldiers ordered us to take off our clothes, jump into the water, and swim towards them.”

The gunboat, Sadallah said, moved half a kilometre away after the two fishermen had jumped into the water. “We swam for about 15 minutes to reach it,” he said. “Then they took us aboard and handcuffed and blindfolded us.” In illegal detention later in Israel’s Ashdod port, the two were interrogated, but not charged. They were released at the Erez crossing more than 14 hours after their abduction.

The Sadallahs’ hassaka remains in Ashdod, along with what Palestinian fishermen attest are an increasing number of their fishing vessels.

The hassaka will cost 4,000 shekels (about 1,000 dollars) to replace, double the normal price because of the siege on Gaza. The missing nets cost more: 6,000 shekels. “And fishing is our only source of income,” the now jobless Sadallah says.

Jihad Sultan, also from Sudaniya, spoke of his abduction by the Israeli navy a month earlier, on May 27.

“It’s the third time I was abducted,” he said. “The Israelis accused me of crossing into the ‘no-go zone’, but I didn’t.” In Ashdod, Sultan said he saw “a building filled with nets which I’m sure are stolen Palestinian nets.”

Zaki Taroush and his 17-year-old son Zayed were fishing 600 metres off the coast and 200 metres south of the closed zone the same day Sultan was abducted. They were likewise forced under the live fire of Israeli soldiers to paddle their hassaka west to a waiting Israeli gunboat where they underwent the same, standard, procedure: strip, swim, abduction, handcuffing and blindfolding.

In detention, they were accused of being in off-limits waters, in what is known as the ‘K’ zone. Tarroush had been abducted along with seven other fishermen just three months earlier, on Mar. 13, under similar circumstances, also losing his net when Israeli soldiers cut the ropes. Following that abduction, the Israelis kept his hassaka, returning it nearly two months later, the 150 shekels transport of which he had to pay.

Under the Oslo interim agreement, Palestinian fishermen were accorded a 20 nautical mile fishing limit, one which Israel has since repeatedly, unilaterally, downsized to as little as three miles.

In Sudaniya, Jihad Sultan explains his work on a beached, broken hassaka. “This was taken by the Israelis. When it was returned to us, it had been badly damaged. I’m certain it was dropped on cement,” he said, pointing to long splits in the wood. “It needs to be entirely rebuilt.”

One of the problems now, Sultan explained, is the lack of materials for repairing the boat. “It will cost nearly 3,500 just to repair the boat.” Fishing nets also are comprised of several unavailable or highly expensive parts.

“The steel bits on the netting cost 15 shekels a kilo, versus six shekels before the siege. But they are very hard to find now. Rope used to cost 20 shekels per 100 metres, but now it’s 50 shekels and completely unavailable. Sometimes it is brought through the tunnels, but the quality is poor. Even the buoys which hold the nets up are triple the price, at two shekels apiece, and can’t be found in Gaza.”

With so many parts unavailable in Gaza, Sultan said that to make a ‘new’ net fishermen sew together bits from old nets. To worsen matters, “when the Israeli soldiers don’t find any fishermen to arrest, they often cut or take our nets.”

On the beach near Sultan’s broken hassaka, Awad Assaida’s bullet-latticed hassaka sits unused, waiting for repairs. “I was in the boat when the Israelis attacked,” said Salim Naiman. “They shot at me for around 30 minutes, from all around me.” Naiman said that when the Israelis finally left, a Palestinian fishing launch nearby towed the boat to shore. Over 50 bullet holes punctured the sides, top and interior of the hassaka. The attacks are by no means limited to the northern areas, but occur all along Gaza’s coast. Nor are the attacks limited to recent times – they go at least a decade back. The Israeli navy’s policy of assault and intimidation has killed at least six fishermen in the last four years, including Hani Najjar, shot in the head by Israeli soldiers in October 2006 while fishing roughly 2.5 miles off the coast of Deir Al-Balah.

Since Jan. 18 this year when the assault on Gaza ended, five fishermen are known to have been wounded at sea, five more injured on the shore, more than 40 abducted, at least 17 boats taken, and dozens more damaged. Of the boats that have been returned, all have suffered damage or theft of equipment while in custody of the Israeli authorities.

Sultan believes one reason for the severe attacks on Palestinian fishermen is political. “The water near the ‘K’ area is rich in fish. The Israelis know this and don’t want Palestinian fishermen benefiting from it. It’s part of the siege.”

*fisherman shows the size of a shelling hole from Israeli navy shelling on Palestinian fishing boats. The sand diagram depicts how Israeli navy boats circle Palestinian fishing boats, coming closer and closer, firing on and shelling immediately near the Palestinian fishing boat.

*inside Palestinian fishing boat shot more than 50 times by Israeli navy soldiers in Palestinian waters.

*Jihad as-Sultan’s broken hassaka, returned in this condition after confiscation by Israeli navy.

*materials needed to repair the boat. Such materials are largely unavailable or, when available excessively expensive, due to the siege on Gaza.

*demonstrating how Israeli soldiers will hook Palestinian fishing nets in the water and haul them aboard the Israeli naval boats, stealing them.

*the Oslo-boundaries for Palestinian fishermen. These boundaries have been ignored and new, Israeli-decided, choking boundaries of 3 miles and less are imposed on Palestinian fishermen. Even within these limits, Israeli navay soldiers continue to shoot at, shell and abduct Palestinian fishermen.

*in Gaza port, fishing boats damaged by Israeli shelling during the War on Gaza.

*Deir al Balah port, more damaged Palestinian fishing boats, hit by Israeli attacks.

50+ bullets for a fishing boat

*hand-drawn map given by IOF to Palestinian fishermen, demarking IOF’s imposition of arbitrary fishing zones.

*Palestinian fishermen working with precious fishing nets. [photo: Emad Badwan ]

*[photo: Emad Badwan ]

*[photo: Emad Badwan ]

*a woman buys direct from fishermen and re-sells. The fish are expensive, the quality poor. Because of the siege and Israeli-imposed fishing limits. [photo: Emad Badwan ]

Fishing Under Fire

Rafiq abu Ryala shot by Israeli soldiers

Words of Fishermen Under Fire

The sea provides no relief today. I sit on a tattered plastic chair at the seaside, close enough that the waves’ mist brushes my face. But there’s no relishing this water. I’m acutely aware of the sewage and pollution in it, and shudder at the sight of kids diving in headfirst. There’s no other option for them, and perhaps luckily for them they don’t know what diseases they will quite possibly contract. Out of school and with little else but kites to amuse them, the sea is one of the blessings of Gaza.

But it’s not just the kids exposed to these waters the sea today. Families, women in long robes wading knee high, men in t-shirts and pants splashing in… And even from my non-immersed spot on the rocks above, my skin is slowly being saturated with the sewage water sea.

A line of small fishing boats (hassakas) is being pulled out to an uncertain fate, hoping to drop nets and catch what meagre amounts of fish remain within an arbitrary fishing limit severely imposed by an occupying military force. Behind the idyllic sunset and silhouettes of the boats in tow is a grim reality: many of the fishermen will face shooting, shelling, water cannon spray harassment, and even abduction. But with no economy, no work in Gaza, they’ll take that risk.

Earlier today, the last Free Gaza boat en route to this imprisoned Strip was forcibly stopped by up to 6 Israeli naval boats under the threat that if they continued, they’d be arrested…which is what happened in the end: they were kidnapped from international waters, abducted to Israel, and are going to be dealt with in the same illegal manner as abducted Palestinian fishermen [except perhaps these foreign-passport-holders won’t be stripped, blindfolded and beaten] and previously abducted international supporters.

It would be pretty ludicrous, if it weren’t so sad and frustrating. Five months after Israel pummelled Gaza into heaps of rubble and 10s of 1000s of homeless, the choking reality is one of a devastated region where nothing has been re-built, almost no goods allowed in, the economy worse than ever –destroyed by the Israeli-Egyptian-international siege on Gaza –and feelings of strangulation and despondency the highest yet and increasing…

What exact threat did the 21 person boat full of humanitarian workers, journalists, a Nobel peace laureate, a former US congresswoman, and concerned citizens pose? Their cargo: medicine, kids toys, and olive trees.

At 2:13 am this morning I’d gotten a text message saying “big trouble for the boat.” Off and on throughout the early morning and into the afternoon, I received updates on the situation:

-8:17 am: “(Israeli) boats still trailing them (Spirit of Humanity). We expect trouble when they turn towards Gaza about 11am,” a friend texted.

-11:36 am: “(Israeli) warships on both sides of them (Spirit of Humanity).”

-12:02 pm: “10 miles from Palestinian waters. 3 (Israeli) ships surrounding. Given warning to turn around. Spirit is refusing to stop.”

-2:09 pm: “(Israeli) naval boats have moved ahead of Spirit and formed a blockade. They have been told they will be arrested if they try to pass, but they are going to try to pass now.”

-2:26 pm: “5 (Israeli naval) boats around them (Spirit) now.”

-3:23 pm: “(Israeli) soldiers are on the boat!”

The last text message was later confirmed on the Free Gaza website: “IOF later released a statement saying they’ve taken over the boat.”

Free Gaza said:

So far we have not been able to contact any of our people, but we do have a team of attorneys working for their immediate and unconditional release. Please help us. Please contact your local newspapers and TV stations, government officials and embassies. Please call the numbers below and demand that Israel free the 21 innocent people kidnapped today, as well as the over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners currently held in Israeli jails. They all need your help.

UPDATE from Free Gaza:

Since their kidnapping, tens-of-thousands of people around the world have mobilized to demand their immediate and unconditional release. The Free Gaza Movement would like to thank everyone who has made a phone call, sent a fax or email, written a letter, or organized a demonstration on behalf of our 21 imprisoned friends.

With respect, it is not enough. We are not the story. Since its founding in 1948 the State of Israel has regularly kidnapped and tortured Palestinians, throwing them into forgotten prisons where they can languish for years. Today, over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners without benefit of due process, some never even charged – men, women, and children – endure torture and isolation in Israeli jails, outdoor prison camps, and secret black sites. They come from all walks of life: doctors, journalists, parliamentarians, workers, resistance fighters, homemakers, students and others. They are our sisters and brothers.

The 21 passengers aboard the Spirit of Humanity have been illegally incarcerated for their solidarity work with Palestine. 11,000 other members of our common human family are already imprisoned simply for being Palestinian.

The Siege of Palestine is not simply the physical blockade against Gaza. The Siege includes the hundreds of checkpoints throughout the West Bank that separate families and communities and shatter any prospect for a viable Palestinian state. The Siege includes the millions of Palestinians in Diaspora, many of them dumped in squalid refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere. The Siege is ever-present throughout all aspects of Palestinian life.

see: Addameer

CONTACT the Israeli Ministry of Justice

tel: 00972 2646 6666 or 00972 2646 6340

fax: 00972 2646 6357

CONTACT the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs

tel: 00972 2530 3155 or 00972 2530 3111

fax: 00972 2530 3367

CONTACT Mark Regev in the Prime Minister’s office at:

tel: 00972 2670 5354 or 00972 5 0620 3264

mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

CONTACT the International Committee of the Red Cross to ask for their assistance in establishing the wellbeing of the kidnapped human rights workers and help in securing their immediate release

Red Cross Israel

tel: 00972 3524 5286

fax: 00972 3527 0370

Red Cross Switzerland:

tel: 0041 22 730 3443

fax: 0041 22 734 8280

Red Cross USA:

tel: 001 212 599 6021

fax: 001 212 599 6009

*Saleh al-Medani shows one of the three places where flechette darts punctured his skin and remain embedded after Israeli soldiers shelled his civilian area.

The Electronic Intifada, 30 June 2009

Seventeen-year-old Wafa al-Najjar was about 800 meters from the border with Israel when she was shot in the kneecap by an Israeli soldier.

“There was an explosion, maybe 20 meters away. Then another immediately after. I realized I had been hit,” said Saleh Ahmad al-Medani, pulling aside the collar of his T-shirt to show one of three places where he was punctured by the metal darts known as “flechettes.” The razor-like flechettes are dart-shaped bits of metal packed by the thousands into a single shell that are approximately two inches long.

At just after midnight on 3 June, the 17-year-old was walking home from a friend’s house in Umm al-Nassir, a collection of tents and dilapidated houses in the northwest Gaza Strip, just more than 1 kilometer from the northern boundary with Israel.

Days after being pierced by the flechettes, al-Medani’s wounds not only haven’t healed, the darts are still lodged in his neck, shoulder and leg. “The doctor told me that if I don’t feel too much pain, he won’t operate to remove the darts,” the youth said. “I feel light pain still, but what can I do?”

This is not an unusual situation in Gaza, where Israel has repeatedly used the dart bombs. Due to their design, flechettes dig deeply into their target — flesh, cement and metal alike — with their “tails” frequently breaking off, leaving multiple injuries and rendering them nearly impossible to extract without inflicting more injury in the surgical search. In most cases, doctors opt against surgery, leaving the darts inside the victim’s body.

At the time when al-Medani was struck, “nothing was happening,” he said. “I was with my friend, Ahmad, and it was quiet in the area. Until we were hit.” Seventeen-year-old Ahmad Abu Hashish suffered a lighter injury, with a dart to his foot. Both teens were immediately taken to nearby Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, but al-Medani’s injuries being more serious, including the dart dangerously close to his cervical vertebrae, necessitated his transfer to Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’s (PCHR) weekly report corroborates al-Medani’s testimony that he was hit by the dart bomb. According to PCHR, “At approximately 00:00, IOF [Israeli occupation forces] troops positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel fired four flechette shells at a Bedouin village in the northern Gaza Strip. The shells landed near a number of Palestinian civilians who were beside their houses, approximately 1,000 meters from the border.”

Also on 3 June, in the Beit Hanoun region, Israeli soldiers fired on Palestinian farmers, injuring two persons who PCHR reports were roughly one kilometer from the border, working on farmland. The two injured farmers, both in their mid-60s, are among the latest casualties of Israeli shelling and firing since the end of Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza in January.

For almost a decade, Israel has unilaterally imposed an off-limits area solely on the Palestinian side of the boundary between Israel and Gaza. This “buffer zone” has ranged from 50 meters wide to more than two kilometers in some northern areas. On 25 May, Israeli authorities officially announced the current boundaries of the buffer zone to be 300 meters, within which anyone walking on the land would be subject to Israeli fire.

Prior to and following the declaration, Israeli soldiers have continued to shell and shoot well beyond 300 meters, targeting unarmed Palestinian civilians and farmers in the vicinity.

On 18 January, the first day of the ceasefire, Israeli soldiers shot 23-year-old Maher Abu Rjaila, from the village of Khozaa in the southeast Gaza Strip, in the chest with live ammunition, killing him. Since then, two more Palestinians were killed, including one child, and 18 injured, all in or near the “buffer zone” area, all by Israeli soldiers’ intentional shooting and shelling.

One month on and several more victims later, on 24 February, 17-year-old Wafa al-Najjar, from the same region, was shot in the knee by an Israeli soldier roughly 800 meters away from the border with Israel. Al-Najjar lost her entire kneecap and faces months of rehabilitation before she can try to walk again.

On 5 June, Khaled Jahjuh was with his seven-year-old son in the Shoka region east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip when he was injured. The two were driving away from their land, 1.5 kilometers from the Israeli border, when Israeli soldiers began shooting. An Israeli soldier’s bullet passed through the steel of the truck and into Khaled’s back, at his spine, leaving him unable to walk, and leaving his son psychologically scarred.

As many of those injured by Israeli attacks face uncertain recovery and uncertain futures, it is sure that in the extended “buffer zone” region, the number of casualties will continue to rise.

*X-rays showing the flechette dart still lodged in Saleh al Medani’s neck, dangerously close to his cervical vertebrae.

Farming Under Fire updates

*tables, crafted and designed by a friend

the visits:

I asked if I could wash off, if my friend had a pair of track pants I could wear. His sister came down with a track-suit and towel, and led me to the bathroom. “Shampoo?” she’d asked. “No, thanks, I just want to rinse off,” I explained.

Coming out of the shower, I thought I could sneak by the sisters and mother, hide the fact I’d not brought flip-flops to lounge in. Within seconds one sister’s sandals were off. She, barefoot, handed them to me to wear.

“No,” said another, clucking disapproval, “those are like boats. Bring the black sandals.” The younger sister flitted off. I shuffled off anyway, but soon after the younger, still barefoot, sister re-appeared with the black sandals.

She then set out cleaning off my friend’s desk, “so you can work well.”

Computer space cleared, she poured a new cup of tea and a glass of cold water. “To keep you fresh,” she said.

I turned on my computer, began sifting through files. Knock, knock. The older sister re-appeared with a plate of finger cookies: “to help you work,” she said, beaming.

Another visit saw a table laden with the basic available foods: simple vegetables, rice and grape leaves, oil, bread. Simple but delicious fare…which 80% of Gazans can’t afford

*olive oil doused with chili sauce, artfully decorated with some of the few vegetables that are plentiful in Gaza: tomatoes and cucumbers

*wara’ eneb: stuffed grape leaves (meat excluded, a nod to their veg guest)

colours:

*appreciating the unique intensity of flowers’ colours

*although unbearably hot in Gaza nowadays, the trees are flowering in the most extraordinary reds and pinks.

Two weeks ago, I met with Hamsa and Iman, both looking very stressed and quite worried about their coming baby. It was Iman’s first, she quite young, and Hamsa had spent all of his hard-earned money on medications and vet fees for his ill horse, which he used for his work collecting plastics for re-sale.

He had no idea how he would manage the doctor’s fees, and was very concerned about Iman’s health and the expected baby’s health. Iman, aside from being just 16, is a petite woman. I could understand Hamsa’s concern.

I made a call-out to supporters in the UK, and was further contacted by a Canadian supporter, all who wanted to cover Iman’s medical fees and baby-related costs. Hamsa again was astounded.

I worry sometimes that he might believe this help will always exist, and that for some reason we won’t be here. Realistically, this is a valid worry. And I’ve conveyed to Hamsa not only that our financial presence in his life is limited, but also that there are many in Gaza who need support. Hamsa, always a dignified man, immediately corrected my worries: “I only want to work. I have the horse, I was working, the horse got ill.” Of course, he went on about how grateful he was for this support, and I know he’s speaking from the heart.

I knew already that Hamsa only wanted to work, to earn enough money to live very, very modestly in their uncomfortable box-room home. He hasn’t lost his drive, and even while his horse was ill, he continued his work collecting resellables.

Just six days ago, Hamsa called to say Iman had delivered a healthy, ‘tall’ baby boy, named ‘Ali’ after Hamsa’s father. Indeed, Ali does have long legs (I’d interpreted tall as big for his age but in fact, were he upright, he would be tall…for a six day old).

Today I finally found the time to catch a taxi over to Iman and Hamsa’s cement block home off Zarka street, just outside Gaza city.

It was stifling inside. Hamsa apologized for the heat, saying “we have a fan…but the electricity cut.”

Iman’s mother and sister were there, Ali was being cradled, rocked, fed, adored. Hamsa glowed with the pride of a new father.

Welcome to this world, baby Ali. We pray it will be a better one for your generation, that justice will come to Palestinians, that you will live with the rights Palestinians have been robbed of for too many decades.

*Iman, a beautiful new mother.

*Hamsa’s mother, pleased to be a new grandmother.

Wadi Gaza, collection site of central Gaza’s untreated waste, which then pours into the sea. [photo: Emad Badwan]

First Published (IPS) – ‘Biddun mey, fish heyya’, they say in Arabic for a universal truth: ‘Without water, there is no life’.

While diminishing water resources are a global concern, in Palestine the struggle for water is not against global warming or multinational corporations, but for access to water, and against contamination of what precious resources there are.

Mohamed Ahmed, director of the Water Control Department in the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), says “there continues to be a very rapid depletion and deterioration of ground water.”

The main source of water is the coastal aquifer and ground water, which serves Gaza’s agriculture, commercial, industrial and public sectors, says Ahmed. But through the three weeks of Israeli attacks on Gaza last December and January, much of the water network infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, rendering already scarce water all the more scarce.

The destruction caused by Israeli shelling, tanks and bulldozers throughout the Strip further damaged Gaza’s sanitation network, causing 150,000 cubic metres of untreated and partially treated sewage waste water to flow over agricultural and residential land and into the sea during the attacks. The daily average of wastewater being pumped into the sea is still a staggering 80,000 cubic metres.

The water treatment crisis has been a catastrophe in the making for decades. In 2004, a report on water alternatives published by the Islamic University of Gaza’s Department of Environment and Earth Science said groundwater had already “deteriorated to a limit that the municipal tap water became brackish and unsuitable for human consumption” throughout the Strip.

Techniques introduced for improving water quality included desalination and reverse osmosis, importing bottled water, and collecting rain water. But these initiatives have been rendered increasingly futile in the face of years of Israeli assaults on Gaza’s infrastructure, combined with its sanctions and siege regime, heightened since June 2007 when Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip.

The siege has meant an increasingly long waiting list of spare parts, pipes, and building materials. This directly affects Gaza’s ability to maintain its sanitation and water treatment facilities.

“We’ve been waiting for three years for these items to enter, along with desalination units,” says Ibrahim Alejla, media officer for Gaza’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utilities (CMWU).

In its January 2009 Damage Assessment Report, CMWU speaks of 5.97 million dollars damage to Gaza’s water and wastewater treatment facilities and infrastructure. Some of the greatest damage was done in northern Gaza, where three new facilities were totally destroyed. Severe damage was caused to the North Gaza Emergency Sewage Treatment Plant, as well as to wastewater distribution networks throughout the north.

Government sources say that more than 800 of Gaza’s 2,000 water wells were destroyed or rendered not useable from the last Israeli attacks.

Central Gaza also suffered. The Sheikh Rajleen Waste Water Treatment Plant, the largest in the Gaza Strip, was shelled, causing pipelines to rupture and raw sewage to flood more than a square kilometre of agricultural and residential land.

The CMWU says it had provided coordinates for all water and wastewater facilities to Israeli authorities. Yet throughout Gaza sites were hit. Much of the damage was to pipelines, torn up by Israeli tanks and bulldozers. Pipes are among the items Israeli authorities bar from entering Gaza.

The PWA’s Mohamed Ahmed says the sandy nature of the Sheikh Rajleen region brought wastewater permeation into ground water. “Areas with clay and soil tend to slow the drainage, but in Sheikh Rajleen the sewage water very quickly drained into the ground water.”

Ahmed says “we’ve found the presence of detergents in our monitoring wells, indicating that wastewater and ground water have mixed.” Monther Shoblak, CMWU director, said this type of contamination occurred also in Beit Hanoun to the north of Gaza City where facilities were destroyed.

Wadi Gaza [photo: Emad Badwan]

Central Gaza’s Wadi Gaza region is one of the most visible and noxious sites of sewage dumping. The black sludge streaming into the sea is seen and smelt by passengers on the ride south from Gaza city.

Ibrahim Alejla of CMWU says the flow of sewage into the sea is not only dangerous, but wasteful. “If the borders were open, and we could get the chemicals and equipment needed to treat the water, it could be re-used in agriculture.”

Mohamed Ahmed says nitrate levels have for the past two years been three times the World Health Organisation (WHO) limit. Nitrates are believed to be carcinogenic.

“It is too soon to see all of the negative impacts,” says Mohamed Ahmed. And with Gaza’s Islamic University chemical laboratories bombed during Israel’s attacks, “Gaza has no facilities for testing water for the presence of heavy metals and other contaminants.”

Ahmed believes numerous chemical pollutants will be found when the tests are carried out. “The war occurred during winter, during our rainy season. When it rained, the chemicals and pollutants in the air went directly into the ground water.”

The CMWU and PWA say that many of the most affected areas have had their water networks repaired. “The municipalities chlorinate water to eliminate contamination,” says Ahmed. But difficulties arise when Israeli authorities prevent the entry of chlorine into Gaza. “Then the government issues advisories not to drink the network water.”

Ahmed warns of the effect on rural residents from contaminated ground water. “Many people depend on wells for their drinking water,” he says.

*swimming downstream from the Gadi Gaza run-off [photo: Emad Badwan]

The water problems extend beyond consumption of tainted water. The Gaza health ministry and WHO have issued swimming advisories, listing seven extremely polluted areas as high-risk for diarrhoeal and skin diseases.

Khaled Al-Habil, a fishermen at Gaza city port, says the waste-polluted sea is destroying marine life.

“If you open the fish up, they are black inside. Not like normal fish. The sewage is destroying the fish. People who swim in the water at the port, their skin becomes irritated, like a rash,” Al-Habil said.

“I’m a fishermen, I know fish. But there are others who don’t know it’s from the port, who buy and eat them,” he said.

*Wadi Gaza sewage emptying into the sea [photo: Emad Badwan]

*Kamal Shagoura, engineer at the Deir el Balah sewage treatment plant, explaining the passage of untreated sewage to the sea [photo: Emad Badwan]

[photo: Emad Badwan]

*straining garbage out of sewage; water is then passed through the treatment plant. In theory, with the proper chemical and treatments, wastewater would be treated before leaving the plant to the sea.

*demonstrating the emergency valve, in case of sewage and rainwater overflow, to send untreated sewage immediately to the sea (without straining the garbage out).

*Beit Lahia sewage treatment plant (photo November 2008). This pool overflowed in April 2007, killing numerous living in the surrounding area below.

*house below the wastewater pool, in danger if the pool again overflows.

*flooding in Khan Younis, earlier in 2008, result of strained water and sanitation networks.

*sewage treatment pool, destroyed during Israel`s war on Gaza. (photo: CMWU)

*photo CMWU

*damaged pipe, flooding surrounding agricultural area (photo: CMWU)

*flooding in Sheik Rajleen, following Israeli strike on the facility (photo: CMWU)

(photo: CMWU)

(photo: CMWU)

(photo: CMWU)

(photo: CMWU)

Q-40 well, northern Gaza, destroyed in Israeli air strikes. (photo: CMWU)

(photo: CMWU)

(photo: CMWU)

First Published

Monday, 9:45 am

“Tayara! Tayara!” a toddler’s anguished scream announces. The roar of an Israeli warplane cuts through the sounds of the morning. Flying low, its menace is loud.

The child’s voice is not like that of the confident child I met half a year ago, who calmly named the warplanes by sound. Now I hear the wail of a traumatized child who equates the F-16 sound with terror and death.

I learned later that around the same time that the Israeli warplane was buzzing around the Gaza coast, the Israeli military dropped flyers along Gaza’s eastern border, proclaiming the 300m no longer a part of the Green Line, an off-limits zone in which anyone risks being shot. According to news reports, a box of the flyers hits a 12-year-old boy in the Tel Al-Hawa district, sending him into a coma.

Tuesday

The ‘Hope’ convoy tours Gaza after finally being permitted to enter yesterday evening, having endured a 24 hour wait at the Egyptian controlled Rafah crossing. Only a fraction of the European group, 22 of 100, is granted entry. They have brought with them 25 ambulances, a kidney dialysis machine, wheelchairs, and truck loads full of medicine.

Wednesday

After reading about the British doctors and nurse, who are on a hunger strike at the Egyptian Rafah crossing after being denied entry to set up a cardiac surgery unit in Gaza, I go to Shifa Hospital to learn about the situation of Gaza’s heart patients.

Dr. Nasser, head of the cardiac department, spoke of the great need for cardiac surgeons in Gaza:

There are only two in all of Gaza, and one of them is ill. The other cannot work independently.

He estimates that there are 400 patients in need of heart surgery.

”We lack the expertise,” he states, saying that it has become impossible to send doctors out of Gaza for training.

Thursday

I go to meet with Abu Mohammed, the secretary general of the Gaza fishing syndicate to learn more about the issues fishermen face, namely heavy, illegal restrictions imposed by the Israeli navy on how far Palestinian fishing boats can go out to sea. Abu Mohammed spoke of the Israeli navy frequently kidnapping Palestinian fishermen, and of the Israeli navy’s daily intense, close range shooting and shelling at Palestinian fishermen in their boats. He shows me boats, which were shelled and destroyed during Israel’s war on Gaza. I ask about the owner of one of the destroyed boats: What is he doing now?

“Fish shugel,” Abu Mohammed tells me, ‘no work’.

“How,” I ask, “do the fishermen continue to go out every day, knowing they will be shot at?”

“We’re not afraid,” he answers. “But we are very aware, that we could be injured or killed any time or even kidnapped!”

Friday

It is like living near a construction site: night and morning, the sound of jack-hammers, repeatedly stuttering, drowning out thoughts. Except that the ‘jack-hammer’ sound is in reality the intense gunboat firing of the Israeli navy, attacking and harassing Palestinian fishermen. And, this harassment does not stop at sun-down, but continues through the night, and into the next day.

Then there is the shelling. After speaking with Abu Mohammed yesterday, I now understand how gravely close the shelling is to the fishermen: the Israeli gunboats fire shells into the water immediately next to the fishing boats, either causing surges of waves to destabilize the boat, while the fishermen frantically try to pull up costly nets, or even damaging the hull and boat equipment. If one of these shells hits the gas tank…

During the war on Gaza, Israeli gunboats shelled two medium-sized fishing boats, and two medium-sized hassakas [small outboard engines] in the Gaza city harbour, incinerating the fiberglass hull and sides, and destroying nets. At great expense the nets can eventually be replaced, but fiberglass is non-existent in Gaza. The boats are docked, fishermen made jobless, and dependent families are without an income.

In total, according to Nazar Ayesh of the Gaza fishermens syndicate, 23 boats in the Gaza city region, 30 boats and nets in the north, 25 in Deir el Balah, and 36 boats and fishermen’s huts in Khan Younis, along with another 17 huts in Rafah were destroyed by Israeli shelling and F-16 bombs.

Saturday

Seaside, Gaza city, is livid with suffering, and with determined grasps at joy. This small stretch of sand just a few hundred meters –between the bombed port and the hotels on the seaside (also bombed) is a small luxury where families bask in the sun and breeze, stroll along the sand, and try to escape sadness, and the feeling of futility, for just a short time.

My friends long for normality. They want to do something with their lives.

“We go to work, eat, sleep, go to work, eat, and sleep. There’s no life, no dreams, no possibility of travel.”

Every day I see the stress and unhappiness on their faces. They work long hours, but the economy is devastated, and their pay is impossibly low.

Maybe one or two of them will manage to leave Gaza, see the world, and experience a different life.

However, that leaves a million and a half Palestinians trapped, the majority far less fortunate than my employed friends.

Sunday

After two days, the farmers we joined have brought in their harvest of 30 dunums of wheat. It has been a surprisingly successful two days, considering the shooting – it is so heavy that it formed ‘clouds of dust’–from Israeli soldiers, which drove these farmers off their land just last week. We are all relieved to have finished without an incident, but aware that another 140 dunums of the same farmer’s land lies ‘off-limits’, as it has since Israel arbitrarily imposed the ‘buffer zone’ restrictions on Palestinians a decade ago.

Some of the young farmers leave their morning of hard labor to continue to a different plot, to tend vegetables, moving from low-wage work to low-wage work. Years ago, when the situation was different, they worked safely on the land, amidst the trees that have since been bulldozed.

Hamsa’s wife Iman is very near the end of her term, due to give birth any day now. Thinking that she may have already had her baby, I called her this morning to ask her news.

Only because I had called did Hamsa divulge their latest problems: they need an adequate doctor, because Iman is quite young and this is her first childbirth and they are worried the public doctors won’t be good enough. But they don’t have the money to cover a private doctor’s fees. Hamsa mentioned that his horse has been sick for the last 10 days, so for the last 10 days he has not worked collecting plastics for re-sale.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it,” he told me. “I’ve brought a vet to look at him, he said the horse is fine.” But when Hamsa hooks the horse up to its cart, it doesn’t walk. He’s spent what money he had, which wasn’t much, on vet fees. Now, his son due in a matter of days, jobless, and uncertain what to do about the horse, his work, a doctor, their future, Hamsa looks like he’s aged years since I last saw him a few weeks ago.

Later, as I’m discussing this with a friend, saying ‘they are very poor, live very modestly,’ he replies, ‘there’s so many, so many like this in Gaza. Ayiishiin. Living.”

But how, how are they living?

Maybe the visitor to Gaza thinks the siege is overplayed. ‘No one is starving in Gaza,’ some say.

And yes, people here are somehow scraping by.

But they are being starved. Of a real life, free from the oppression of poverty, of joblessness, of worry how to get by each day. They’re being starved of education, of dreams, of contact with friends, family, and perfect strangers outside.

And Hamsa, whose donkey was killed in the massacre and whose extended family all live in great poverty, many with sicknesses needing treatment outside, is caught between the daily survival worries and the worries of any would-be parent, for his child’s health, his wife’s health, their lives.

I don’t know how they keep living.

Today, on my birthday, we (ISM) went with Beit Hanoun ‘Local Initiative’ volunteers to retrieve the long-decomposed body of a man who didn’t live to see his 19th birthday.

Ahmed Abu Hashih disappeared on April 21st.  His family believed that he had been killed somewhere in the north-eastern border region, the Israeli-imposed ‘buffer zone’ where Israeli soldiers routinely shoot at Palestinian farmers and residents. Since then, his parents and others have searched, unsuccessfully, for his body, fearing the worst.

Sixteen of us (family, international accompaniment from the ISM, and local rights activists and volunteers from Beit Hanoun) set out this morning to comb the land for the missing youth.  The terrain is dry weeds and tall, prickly scrub, making walking difficult.

We accompanied the father -Abu Ayesh- and a local who knew the area well, filming and attempting to convey to the soldiers shooting at us from jeeps that we had come to retrieve a corpse.

The shooting, along with 2 loud explosions, likely sound grenades, became more intense and closer when the body was actually spotted and the team started to load it onto a white sheet.  As we quickly loaded Abu Hashish onto his cloth stretcher, the shooting continued.

Abu Ayesh had been further off, and thankfully missed the scene of his son’s body, 54 days decomposed, falling apart, head falling off.

Muslims place great importance in burying the dead immediately. Nearly 2 months after his death, the anguish of the Ahmed Abu Hashish family is great, his body desecrated by the elements, they denied access to it due to the threat of being shot by Israeli soldiers at the border –who indeed did shoot when we retrieved the body.

I wanted to know, what was he doing in the area close to the border.  Was he resistance?

No, I was told, he was a Bedouin youth, poor family, probably wanted to try to cross into Israel to look for work. “Hua zift min el dinnia,” –he was worn down by this life.

The exact circumstances of his death are yet unknown, but it can be assumed that Ahmed Abu Hashih died from gunshot wounds, shot by Israeli soldiers at the border hundreds of metres off.

As we returned with his dead son, Abu Ayesh cried out, uttering phrases of grief and mourning.  Soon after reaching the road, a donkey cart arrived to take away the corpse.  At the same time, Ayesh, Ahmed’s brother, arrived, dropping his motorbike, and began to wail his sorrow in a high-pitched woman’s shriek.

*listen for the father’s anguished lamentations, the brother’s shrill wail (at the end of the clip)

ISM-Gaza Strip footage

The Electronic Intifada, 11 June 2009

Dr. Nasser Tatter in his office at Gaza’s Shifa hospital. (Eva Bartlett)

One of the most densely populated places on earth only has two cardiac surgeons to serve its entire population. According to Dr. Nasser Tatter, head of Shifa hospital’s cardiology unit, that only explains part of the medical crisis that exists in the Gaza Strip today.

“We are in bad need for cardiac surgeons,” said Dr. Tatter, further explaining that one of the two surgeons is ill and unable to perform surgeries. The second, Tatter added, isn’t able to work independently, rendering Gaza devoid of specialists able to perform open heart surgery.

Dr. Tatter estimates that there are roughly 400 patients in Gaza in need of such surgery. Some, he said, have died from their heart maladies. “Many have tried to leave, to go outside for surgery,” Tatter said. “But they were denied exit by the Israeli and Egyptian authorities.”

Israel’s sanctions and siege regime imposed on Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinian citizens has been in place since March 2006, shortly after Hamas was democratically elected in internationally monitored elections. It was further tightened in June 2007, when Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip in factional fighting with the rival Fatah political party.

The years of closed borders has severely crippled Gaza’s health sector, denying patients vital medicines, replacement parts for hospital equipment, access to outside medical care, and preventing the entrance of outside expertise. Moreover, Gaza’s civilian infrastructure was devastated during Israel’s three week assault on Gaza (December 2008-January 2009), making the treatment of patients within the tiny coastal territory near impossible.

After listing the urgently needed equipment and medical supplies Dr. Tatter explains that “We have enough for maybe five operations.” He adds that in the past it took a month to get even basic supplies and solutions.

However, in spite of the difficult circumstances, what is really lacking are the actual cardiac surgeons necessary for heart procedures. “We have the hospital and the equipment need for the procedures. We do have a shortage of some instruments and solutions used in the surgery but we could do a small number of operations today if we had the doctors.”

“We would like to send doctors outside for specialist training, but because of the closed borders it’s impossible,” says Dr. Tatter. The problem, he says, is that it is not easy to simply train others. “It requires specialists to do the training.”

Roughly 10 years ago, surgeons were coming to Gaza from different countries, staying on to provide training and/or operations. Today, the Israeli siege, supported by Egypt has made it near impossible for visiting doctors to enter Gaza, no matter how badly they are needed.

From 4 May to 22 May, a group of visiting medical specialists attempted to enter Gaza via the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing. Three medical professionals, two from London’s Hammersmith Hospital, waited nearly one month for permission to enter Gaza, to establish a cardiac surgery unit at Shifa Hospital and to provide some of the vitally-needed training to doctors and medical students.

Omar Mangoush, a cardiac surgeon at Hammersmith, Christopher Burns-Cox, a retired consultant physician, and Kirsty Wong, a nurse at Hammersmith Hospital were the latest team to head to Gaza via Palestine International Medical Aid (PIMA), a UK-based charity which has successfully sent two medical delegations to Gaza already this year.

On 19 May, after two weeks of being denied entry by Egyptian authorities, the Hammersmith team, joined by six other doctors and nurses, began a hunger strike to protest the banning of medical expertise from Gaza. Even when Code Pink and Hope convoys were granted entry, Egyptians controlling Rafah refused to allow the Hammersmith team into Gaza.

Christopher Burns-Cox, who has previously visited Gaza five times in order to provide medical training, reported that he’d planned to both consult with medical students at Gaza’s al-Azhar University and with patients at the Strip’s al-Wafa rehabilitation hospital.

He added that his colleague, Dr. Mangoush, was “keen to restart what is life-saving and not necessarily very expensive surgery.” However, since both of his colleagues were using their leave time to travel to Gaza and due to the wait at Rafah crossing, it is unlikely that either will be able to return any time soon. Although not accompanying the Hammersmith team, Dr. Sonia Robbins, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon from the UK, also found herself locked out of Gaza, although she is a regular visiting doctor in Gaza.

Just a few days after the PIMA trio left, the siege claimed Gaza’s 337th victim, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Muhammad Rami Ibrahim Nofal, a one-year-old infant from Khan Younis, died on 25 May precisely because of the inability to operate on his heart.