Occupied Jerusalem, May 01: The Palestinians in the Death Zone called Gaza are being slaughtered again as Israel and now Egypt kill and wound more innocent civilians who challenge their illegal siege, blockade and quarantine.
In the past four days, one young Palestinian man has been killed and two young women and a young man have been wounded by Israeli snipers as they protested the Israeli bulldozing of 300 meters of Palestinian land into an Israeli “buffer zone.” Four young Palestinian tunnel workers have been killed by suffocation and 6 injured as Egypt sprayed a crowd disbursal gas into a tunnel.
Death in the Tunnels from Egyptian Gas and from Israeli Bombs
According to an Associated Press report yesterday, on April 28, four young Palestinian men who work as tunnel diggers were killed by suffocation by some type of crowd control gas sprayed into one tunnel by Egyptian authorities. Six other tunnel workers were seriously injured by the gas.
Other Palestinian tunnel workers have been killed in tunnels that collapse from Israeli aerial bombings and from contact with electrical wires that run the length of the tunnels that power an underground lighting system.
According to the Mezan Center, a Gaza Human Rights organization, five Palestinian men have died in tunnel collapses in 2010. In 2009-2010, Israeli aerial strafing killed 10 Palestinians in the tunnels. A total of 141 have died in the tunnels and 353 have been injured, including 4 children.
Gaza’s official border crossings have been closed by Israel and Egypt since 2007 when Hamas, considered a “terrorist organization” by Israel and the United States, seized control of Gaza following a Parliamentary election in 2006 in which Hamas won sufficient seats to control the Parliament.
The tunnels underneath the border with Egypt are the lifeline that provide a means of getting food and materials into Gaza since the Israeli blockade prohibits all but 44 items to come into Gaza. The Israelis maintain that the tunnels are used to bring weapons into Gaza that are used against Israeli forces.
Egypt has cracked down on movement of materials through the tunnels in recent months. Egyptian authorities have blown up numerous tunnel entrances and set up checkpoints in the area around Rafah, Egypt and confiscated materials destined for the tunnels. With the assistance of the United States, since December, 2009, Egypt has been building an underground steel wall to block the tunnels. About four miles of the underground wall is complete with another four miles to go to completely cut off the tunnels.
Once the underground steel wall is complete, the suffocation of the people of Gaza will begin in earnest, unless international citizen pressure forces Israel, Egypt, the United States and European Union countries to stop the collective punishment of the people of Gaza through this illegal blockade.
Death and Injury of Palestinians and Internationals by Israeli Shooting During Protests of the Taking of 20% of Arable Gaza Land for an Israeli “Buffer Zone”
On Wednesday, April 28, 2010, Ahmed Salem Deeb was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper during protests against the Israeli military bulldozing of Palestinian farming lands in a 300 meter zone in Gaza that Israel calls a “buffer zone,” and a no-go zone for Palestinians.
Up to 20 per cent of Gaza’s arable land is inaccessible to Palestinian farmers because it is now in the new “no-go” area. The Israeli “shoot to kill” policy is implemented in this zone in Palestinian territory. Palestinians have been shot by Israeli snipers as far as 2 kilometers away from the border.
According to Max Ajl, a reporter who was at the protest, Ahmed died from a severed femoral artery from a hollow-tip bullet that had ruptured the middle of his thigh, shredding it. The doctor at al Shifa hospital in Gaza City said Ahmed died of shock and blood loss.
Four days before Ahmed’s death, on Friday, April 24, 2010 at a peaceful, non-violent demonstration at El Maghazi, Deir Al Balah, Gaza, against the Israeli “buffer zone,” three people were shot by Israeli military snipers.
Nidal Al Naji (18) was shot in his right thigh. Hind Al Akra (22) was shot in the stomach and had to undergo emergency surgery. Bianca Zammit (28), a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was shot in her left thigh as she was filming the protest.
–Agencies