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October 1, 2003:
Mohammed's younger brother Issam was seriously injured and was taken to the hospital about a week ago. His leg was amputated and he is undergoing medical treatment.

October 18, 2003:
Mohammad's younger brother, Hussam Al-Mouhagir [17 yrs old], was killed by the Israeli army today. Hussam was sitting at home when he was shot in the face, chest, back, legs. He had nothing to do with any violent or even political movement. Hussam's crime is that he was a Palestinian.
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RAFAH TODAY

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25 October 04

The middle of the night — Breaking news: "Apaches, tanks and bulldozers invading Khanyounis Refugee Camp".

Human shreds, legs, arms, heads are scattered on the alleyways and streets of Khanyounis Refugee Camp at these moments.

In a question to an ambulance driver, how many people were injured and killed:" I don’t know, but I have now in the back of the ambulance, legs, arms and human parts", he answered.

Hundreds of families start leaving their houses at these moments, under the heavy shelling and shooting by apaches, and tanks in the Camp.

24 October 04

Eight children at D UNRWA Elementary School for Girls in Tal Al Sultan were injured during the first class of the morning when the IDF fired on the school. All eight girls, plu s their teacher, were in their Arabic language class when they were injured by shattered window glass.

Also on Sunday, Al Najjar Hospital reported that Abdul Aziz Abu Moammar died of wounds sustained early in the morning near Sofa crossing northeast of Rafah Refugee Camp. A few hours later, the Israeli bulldozers started demolishing agricultural land and gardens and burying the remains of previously destroyed houses. When they are finished with this final destruction, the area is totally flat and empty and the wind and rain can start the work of returning once flourishing farms and neighborhoods to desert. If you saw this no-man's-land for the first time, you would find it hard to believe these were once farms, gardens, olive and citrus groves, streets full of people, rows of houses, stores, and mosques—a place of life instead of this empty destruction.

During these last few days, there have been frequent electric outtages, during which landlines do not work, and there has been virtually no internet access throughout South Gaza. Also during the worst of the attacks when the Apaches are nearby, many mobile phones do not work. This adds to the uncertainty and sense of isolation people feel here. There are so many questions in the eyes of everyone you pass in Gaza, and the fear there will be no answers. Sometimes the foreign media is just another source of frustration as it gives so much space to fashion, sports, and entertainment. These are preoccupations many people here find hard to appreciate when our "fashions" are often what we can salvage from rubble, our national sport is running from tanks, and our predominant "entertainment" is waiting at checkpoints.

22 October 04

Destruction caused by the Israeli war machines at Jabalya Refugee Camp

Medical workers carrying the body of one of a man killed by Apache rockets targeting a gathering of civilians, in the North of Gaza Strip, Jabalya Refugee Camp.

Days of penitence: 55 years old woman Halimah Abu Nadi is sitting on what remain from her house, in Block K area , in the Jabalya Refugee Camp, Abu Nadia has 27 members extended family, her house was demolished during the days of penitence Israeli incursion.

One casualty, a young woman, was walking outside fher house to her cousin's house. Another woman was on her way to the hospital in North Gaza. One schoolboy was on his way to elementary school when an Israeli bullet penetrated his head. Another man was walking to the mosque for dawn prayers when he was shot down. Sometimes it seems as if I write the same report over and over, only the names and places change. The four examples above are typical of the deaths taking place throughout the Gaza Strip.

For the Palestinian residents here, the great majority of whom are Moslem, this is the holy month of Ramadan. For the Israeli occupiers, it seems this is the season of killing civilians, especially children in their houses, on the streets, even in the schools.

All the dislocations and fatal changes can make life seem unreal. One day, you see and talk with your brother, your son or your friend. Then the next day, maybe the next hour, you hear he is dead. Before, you could usually blame a cheap bullet and the IDF sniper who fired it. Lately, we hear of fewer sniper deaths. Now, thanks to all the military aid from America, and the passive acquiescence of the international community, the Israeli army relies more now weapons of greater efficiency—tank shells, Apache missile strikes, machine gun fire, and often, illegal fragmentation devices.

These weapons often make a normal funeral impossible. How can you say farewell w hen there is nothing left to say farewell to? How can the family say goodbye to a piece of a leg, an arm, or perhaps a barely recognizable fragment of their loved one's head?

Everywhere you go in Gaza lately, in Jabalya , Rafah, Gaza City, Khan Younis, you can smell death. Since the Israeli attack on Jebalya started in late September, the director of Jebalya's Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Mahmoud Asali, said about 140 people were killed, 60 of them children, and over 500 injured, many of them very seriously with upper-body wounds.

Hundreds of houses were completely and partially demolished in North Gaza, especially in Jebalya, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun. Palestinian municipal workers are still working on an official count of the uninhabitable houses, consulting with the newly homeless residents in their surveys of the ruins. "The choices were only two, either leave the house in five minutes or get demolished with it," an elderly lady of 75 years told me. I spoke to Jamila Abu Rokba while she was sitting on the rubble of wha t had been her house in Jebalya. At the moment, there was nowhere else for her to go.

One of the ambulance drivers at Kamal Adwan Hospital told me, "For more than two and a half years, I have been working as an ambulance driver, but this is the first time I have ever seen victims in such large numbers." He had also never seen bodies so badly mangled. "It was not easy for me to collect human shreds," he said, "and it is even more painful that we often couldn't identify the dead people because so many parts were missing."

The Israeli Occupation Forces have announced their official redeployment from the Jabalya Refugee Camp after 17 days of continuous incursion. During that time, the Gaza Strip was sealed off into many small sections and roads closed by new IDF checkpoints and roadblocks. The IDF violence has not stopped. Today the Israeli soldiers at Abu Holi checkpoint shot at two passengers.. Yesterday, two civilians were injured while they walked beside a taxi on the coast road to Gaza City.

Medical authorities announced that Israel delivered 18 bodies they had been holding of people killed in the past three years. The Palestinian medical personnel could identify only 8 of those bodies, all of them killed within the last few months.

Medical sources at Al Najjar hospital announced that six were killed in the last 24 hours here in Rafah. Two militants were killed in a firefight with Israeli soldiers in the area of the Sufa Crossing near Rafah. Hamas took responsibility for that exchange of fire.

Evewitnesses near the Israeli settlement of Rafiah Yam said two members of Islamic Jihad were killed by an unidentified blast.

This morning Jihad Hassanin, 22, was killed during a clash near the Salah Al Deen gate in Rafah. Medical personnel at Al Najjar hospital said the IDF Forces delivered his body to their ambulance only two hours ago.

A young civilian was killed while on his way to dawn prayers in Rafah. Medical sources said a 29 year old man was brought to Al Najjar Hospital after being killed by an IDF sniper.

Three children were injured today in the daily shelling. One of them, Niman Abu Samahadanah, a girl 8 years old, has a serious spinal injury. In addition, Egyptian sources announced that a 10 year old Egyptian child was killed on the Egyptian side of the Rafah/Egypt border by Israeli bullets.

16 October 04

Here the Israeli gun machines pass: Devastation in Jabalya Refugee Camp

In less than ten hours, a massive IDF incursion on the night of Thursday the 14th into dawn on Friday killed three civilians, left ma ny more injured, destroyed completely or damaged into uselessness about 48 houses, and did serious damage to infrastructure. With that many houses uninhabitable, now hundreds of men, women, and children have become homeless. Rafah governorate has said about 300 citizens joined the thousands already homeless here in ten hours last night.

From the medical staff at Abu Youif Al Najjar Hospital in Rafah,I learned that Ismail Sawalha, a man of 70, Ali Sha'at, 25, and Ahmed Al Tahrawi, 21, were killed in the incursion. Hospital personnel said that the bodies of the two young men arrived at the hospital in burned fragments and initially, identification was difficult. It was only neighborhood eyewitnesses who later told the hospital that
the bodies of the two men were burned in the crater made by the Apache-fired missile.

Ahmed Al Sawalha, the 36-year-old son of Ismail, saw his 70-year-old father killed. "My father was sitting at the stair of our house when he was killed," he said. "There were no gunmen or fighters in the street. There was no need to shoot at him."

Also, I was told by eyewitnesses that Jihad Barhoom, 16 years old , was shot while standing outside his home a few hours before the full incursion started At least four people were badly injured, including an elderly lady, Khadra Shoman.

As usual, the Israeli army rolled into the three neighborhoods with tens of tanks and bulldozers, covered by two Apache helicopters and other surveillance planes.

Some of the early wire service stories have said 30 houses were reduced to rubble. I am getting the estimate of 48 houses from talking to eyewitnesses in the neighborhoods that suffered this incursion, namely, Yebna Camp, Al Shao'ut, and the Al Barahmah district. I tend to trust that number because only someone who actually lives in the area can walk around and know for sure whether a given stretch of rubble had the day before been one, two, three, or more homes.

As usual, water, electric, and sewer lines suffered serious damage. Some of these had been repaired since May's "Operation Rainbow," and are now wrecked again. Also, as usual, streets have been torn up and fruit trees razed. Everywhere you walk in Rafah, you can see the damage caused by incursion after incursion. It is almost imp ossible to find any building that does not have its collection of bullet and shell damage.

From Gaza City:

According to Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, Sharon is "considering withdrawing"to the 'outskirts' over the weekend.

Khalil Samara, the mayor of Jabalya, said this about the announcement: "Sharon is committing his largest, bloodiest massacres under the guise of 'withdrawing' from the Palestinian camps."

This IDF operation, called "Days of Penitence" is the Israeli "response& quot; to a Qassam rocket launched by Palestinian militants at the Israeli town of Sderot close to the Gaza/Israeli border. That attack late in September killed 2 Israeli children. "Response" seems the wrong word for what is now happening in all of Gaza. It is collective punishment, and illegal under international law.

12 October 04

The Israeli Occupation soldiers gave Oraiba district in Rafah 30 minutes to to leave their houses before the bulldozers started demolishing them. “Louder speakers are calling us to leave or they will shoot us” said one of the eyewitnesses over phone in Rafah while running trying to get his important documents.

Eight houses were completely and partially demolished in that incursion, in addition to the damages of the greenhouses, infrastructure, and everything related to humanity. Oraiba district is well known as an agriculture area. It is one of the best sources for markets to get into Gaza Strip.

Abu Youif Al Najar hospital reported about many injured people arriving the hospital everyday due to the daily shelling from tanks and Israel posts.

The Israeli military Forces have been blocking Gaza Strip, dividing it into three parts for the second week in a row. This has made life very dififcult for us with lack of food, medicine and even gas for cars to move inside Rafah.

In Khanyouies also, the IOF Forces shelled Nasser hospital with three ta nk shells, leaving at one of the nurses injured, also a 10 year old schoolgirl was inured while sitting at her school desk in one of the UNRWA schools in the Camp.

In Jabalya, there are now hundreds of injured and dead..

6 October 04

Amnah Al Najjar 60 years old is brought in private car to the hospital after sustaining a head injury by an Israeli sniper. She was in her house.

Israeli soldiers riddled her body with twenty bullets and another five ripped through her head on her way to school. Thirteen year old schoolgirl Eman Al Hums is from Rafah Refugee Camp. She was shot on her way to school with other two friends. They, however, were luckier than she was when they ran away as soon as they heard the shelling.

Dr. Ali Mussa at Abu Youif Al Najjar hospital said that the Israeli soldiers in Rafah shot the child and prevented the medical team from reaching her body nor bringing her into the hospital.

The Israeli military Forces later on today said that they had not found any kind of explosives in her school bag. After killing the schoolgirl, one of the soldiers had said he had believed the bag contained explosives.

From Iman’s blood in Rafah on to Somia Felfel in Jabalya. A tragedy like no other when Israeli tanks shelled her house leaving all 8 of her children injured.

The Jabalya Refugee Camp is till under very heavy shelling and hundreds of victims are arriving at the hospital every hour. The people are appealing to the Red Cross but they have been unable to respond. A case in point: Umm Jamal Id, a member of one of the families who are currently surrounded had been asking for food and water for her children and the Red Cross had not been able to react at all.

In an interview over phone with the spokesman of Red Cross Simon Schorno, he said:’I’m on my way to Gaza Strip, but the damaged roads in Gaza Strip is the reason for the absence of Red Cross over the past few days."

There is heavy resistance in the Jabalya Camp and explosives can be heard from time to time, inside the camp.

Sixty year old Amnah Al Najjar arrived at the hospital a few hours ago after sustaining serious head injuries. She was transferred to Al Shifa hospital due to the lack of beds and medical instruments at Kamal Adwan hospital.

“Al Najjar was shot in her head while she was in her house,“ the driver who brought her body to the hospital said.

Ja balya camp is known as the most heavily populated camp in all of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It is also the first place where the first Intifada had erupted and where a militant Israeli Jeep drove a group of Palestinians workers inside the camp.

Israeli soldiers today prevented ambulances and fire engines from reaching the fire that had erupted in three tons of gas in the North of Gaza Strip. Black smoke can been seen everywhere in the North of Gaza Strip..

Today it was different from yesterday and the past few days because now there are so many international journalists who have come into the area to cover the ongoing carnage, but still the Israeli Forces are not allowing them to into the camp, and still there are so many of them stuck at the Erez checkpoint awaiting permission to get into the Gaza Strip.

The refugee families inside the camp are appealing to all free people throughout the world to stop the blood shedding by the Israeli Occupation Forces in the camp.

All family members were injured: Soha Felfel 6 year old, on her bed, after being injured by a tank shell with all her family in the Jabalya Camp

Even kindergartens: Palestinian children are collecting what remains from the kindergarten that was demolished by the Israeli bulldozers and apaches shelling

2 October 04

Writing from the North of Jabalya:

Jabalia is drowning in blood and is now under a new Israeli incursion that's targeting civilian buildings. There is a smell of death on every street you go. Life is getting wors in the North of Gaza Strip, soldiers are targeting everything related to human beings.

Jabalya Camp in the north of Gaza Strip is surrounded here and hundreds of people were killed and injured.All you can see in the hospital is shreds of human flesh spread all over the streets..

The Jabalia Camp continues to this moment to be under attack.. ambulance drivers, medical workers and journalists were the first people to be targeted by the Israeli Army.

In Rafah also, and according to eyewitnesses, the IDF invaded the camp, killing an old man and injuring two others. The situation is deteriorating throughout..

Most of the dead are children. Kamal Adwan, hospital director said: "The soldiers are delibderately targeting the upper parts of the children by rockets and tanks shell."

People here in the North of the Jabalya Camp are in bad need of water and foo d, and as usual no international organizations are visiting the area to provide the families any help.

Soon, more later from the North of Gaza Strip.

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