report from gaza

national | miscellaneous | news report

Friday November 22, 2002 17:55

by tracey and peter - gluaiseacht

bobssista at yahoo dot co dot uk

report from gaza

we arrived into raffa a city in the gaza strip last night to the sound of gunfire. we met with other internationals to try to discuss what our actions would be. it was hard to hear each other speak as rounds of ammunition were been fired all around. thats lots of us tax dollars been fired into the air. the palestinians told us that the soliders fire at anything that moves and walking around at night can be very dangerous. on our way to the family we were staying with bullets were passing over our heads. but our palestinian friends didn't even bat an eyelid. it becomes normal they told us.
the reason for us coming here is to stay with families whose houses are been demolished to make way for another wall. this time to separate eygpt and palestine. half of raffa lies in eygpt and the other in palestine. 300 houses have already been bulldozed, the reason according to the idf is to stop weapons been smuggled in through under ground tunnels. the families are at best given an hours notice that they are about to loose their homes and at worst they start to bulldoze while the family are inside. this has resulted in 2 deaths already.
this morning a man showed us around his appartment block. all the walls were covered in bullet holes. everything in raffa is covered in bullet holes. another man showed us places where people died after been hit by stray bullets. he showed us the spot where his 8 year old niece was shot. all over the town are pictures of the martyrs. a martyr is anyone who has died as a result of the israeli occupation, children hit by bullets and sucide bombers alike.
the locals here are very protective of us and don't quite understand why we are here. we want to negotiate with soliders to allow the families more time to collect their possesions when their house is being demolished and also we want to look at the wall and inspect the wide area bulldozed around it. (to see if there really is any tunnels} but the locals worry too much about us. today to show them that we are not so easily intimidated by the army and to show the army our presence we (7 internationals) slowly approached the tanks waiving our passports in the air. 2 tanks fired up their engines and drove towards us. we motioned to them that we wanted to proceed towards the wall. a hand appeared from one of the tanks hatches signalling us to back away. we slowly proceeded towards them and they fired about 3 shots at the ground in front of us. we decided we had pushed them far enough and anything more could cause problems for the locals.
raffa is a hopeless case. we can't think of anything to do. the people have become resigned to the fact that they will loose their homes. so when we got an sos call from bethleham 3 of us decided to leave for bethleham. bethleham is under siege because the suicide bomber that blew up the bus in jerusalem was from there. revenge will be taken on all the people of bethelam. collective punishment is a war crime.
i've just heard the news about caoimhe. we had planned to go to jenin next week anyway so we will be able to visit her. if anyone wants to send her support messages you can email them to this address and i will print them out and give them to her.
thats all the news for now. once again i urge people to write to the isreali embassy or protest there.
peace,
tracey and peter

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Comments (4 of 4)

More power to you

by Joe Sheehan

Fri Nov 22, 2002 18:08

Tracey, Peter,

As i said in Ecotopia you are braver than me, look forward to seeing you when you get back, take care of yourselves lads.

Peace,

Joe

Good luck and keep sending the reports

by Andrew

Fri Nov 22, 2002 18:11

Hi guys,

thanks for sending this report and keep them coming. I've passed it on to an Israeli anarchist involved in PGA and ainfos so he may email you.

GAZA

by publo

Fri Nov 22, 2002 19:22

Im just back in ramallah after a few days in Gaza. To be brief Rafah is unbelievable. The destruction is undescribable. I was down in the area where they are building the wall on tuesday and honestly i was horrified. Utter hell, tanks and d-9 bulldozers mowing over rubble that was recently houses.
Stayed a night in Khan Yunis. The house we were staying in was near the camp and there was a bullet hole in the living room window and several in the roof. Also bulet holes in the windows of PCHR a human rights orgs offices. These buildings are a few kilometres away from the nearest military base/settlement and the soldeirs fire at random into the city hitting anything and everything. In Ramallah now and theres gunfire in the distance.
Got held up at a checkpoint going back to gaza city for five and a half hours. The entire time the soldiers were shooting and throwing sound bombs. About one kilometre away tanks were shelling palestinian areas and there were rockets flying. The whole time in gaza there were f-16s roaring overhead, at one stage six to gether. Its unreal.
Just to say to tracey and her friends be well wide of thesoldiers. i know ye've heard it all before,and im in no way trying to be patronising, im just freaked out by the whole occupation and they will hit ye if they feel like it. I guess thats the nature of the thing just take care. To all at home its good to know that ye're involved and keeping up the pressure in any way possible.
also theres an tv producer in the west bank at the moment from RTE. She's producing a 30 minute documentary on the situation to be broadcast on December 13.

Take care amigos.

by Tim Hourigan

Tue Nov 26, 2002 01:07

I can't believe how brave you guys are, but don't take TOO many chances.
(Whatever that means for a peace activist in a warzone)
Keep telling the world what's going on.
Hope to see you soon back here.

Love, peace, respect.

Tim.

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report from gaza

Comments (4 of 4)