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15 January 2013
Posted in
News
Theresa McDermott was on Free Gaza's first trip, August 22-28, 2008 when we broke through Israel's siege. She was also on several other trips, was kidnapped on the June, 2009 voyage and thrown into an Israeli prison. She went back to Gaza during the last Israeli attack in November 2012. Below is Part 2 of her interviews with the families in Gaza.
On Saturday, 12th of January we visited the funeral of Anouar Al Mamluk aged 19 who was shot dead in the Buffer Zone on the 11th of January just East of Jabalya. He was on his own standing around 40 m from the border fence when he was shot in the abdomen, he was taken to hospital but was dead on arrival. He was a member of Fatah but was simply in the buffer zone close to a cemetry where there was a group of young men visiting graves of some Martyrs at the time.
We also visited the house of Omar Ismail Awadi who is 21 years old and was injured in both legs by shrapnel from an exploding bullet when they went to try to help Anouar. He told us the whole story of what happened. Omar is not a member of any political or resistance faction.
Omar told us that he and a friend had gone to the cemetry on Friday to visit some graves when they saw some of his other friends nearby about 100m from the fence and they had gone to chat with them. They could see Anouar on his own around 60m closer to the fence. 4 Israeli Army jeeps drew up on the other side of the fence, around 12 soldiers got out and started firing tear gas and bullets. He and his friends had started to run away but when Anouar was shot they went to try to help him, it was then that a bullet hit the ground in front of him and exploded, spraying his legs with shrapnel. His friends managed to carry both him and Anouar back to where a doctor could get to them and they were both taken to hospital, Anouar was discovered to be dead on arrival, Omar was treated for shrapnel wounds to both ankles and above the left knee, he has to return in one week in order to be seen by an Osteologist as he has a small piece of shrapnel embeded in the bone of his ankle.
The Israeli's claim they suspected they were going to damage the fence as they were at the fence, when we asked Omar about this he insisted that they were around 100m away from it when the Israeli's started to fire and from his reaction to the suggestion that they were closer I believe him. He said that they had only gone closer when they went to pick up Anouar after he had already been shot but they were still 40 m away, not near enough to do damage.Omar said that he is very scared after this incident, he couldn't sleep last night because of thinking about what happened and he wishes that Israel would stop these crimes. His father Ismail is very worried and does not want him to go back to the cemetary or anywhere near the fence.
5 years ago, before cast Lead, Omar's younger brother Mohammed was injured during an Israeli attack on Jabalya Camp, he was 13 at the time and was so badly injured that he had to be sent to Egypt for treatment, he was there for 4 months before being able to return. Mohammed has now recovered but his left hand was badly damaged, he is very artistic and part of his therapy was to encourage his drawing, there are examples of his drawing and other artwork in their house. There are 3 sons and 6 daughters in the Awadi family, 2 of the sons have now been injured by Israeli aggression even though no one in the family are involved with the resistance.
Ismail is a civil servant in the Ministry of the Interior, he is not politicaly active, he has a desk job. He says that he had hoped that the Israelis would honour the cease fire agreement even though he didn't really believe they would, he says "we do not have peace".
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