Death in Gaza

[Donut]

I watched a very interesting and disturbing documentary last night. It was called “Death in Gaza” It was about young Palestinian children living in the Gaza strip. They live in a hellish environment at the best of times, the drone of Israeli bulldozers never far away, demolishing the hovels that they live in.

The film doesn’t make any judgements on the rights and wrongs of the Middle East problems, it’s just a point and shoot film, bearing witness to the lives of a few 12 year olds.

The documentary showed them going to school, worrying about being late and doing the things that most 12 year olds do. They play a game called Muslim and Israelis which is similar to Cowboys and Indians but the object of the game is to die as a martyr. They show them throwing stones at Israeli tanks in a futile gesture of defiance.

A change of scene and the children are in the homes of militia men, nasty looking herberts in black balaclavas with just their eyes showing. These nasty people are encouraging the kids to become martyrs and the kids are well up for it. They want to die together as martyrs, the bad men show them how to hold an RPG. They use the kids to do surveillance work on the Israelis. The kids have even written their goodbye letters to their family.

Another change of scene. One of the kids is at home extolling the virtue of martyrdom to his mother. She is like any other mother – “No, don’t talk like this, I want you to live, to go to university, to marry”. If women had their way celestial virgins would wait in vain. But the kid is set on martyrdom.

Change again. In the house of a palestinian family as the Israelis pay a visit. Lots of bullets fly into the house. The British camera man leaves the house waving a white flag, shining a torch onto it, with TV emblazoned on their helmet, calling out “British journalist, British journalist, don’t shoot!”

Then “BANG!!”, camera falls to the ground, followed by the cameraman! Dead before he hit the ground, murdered by an Israeli soldier.

Now the 12 year old has changed his mind, he no longer wants to be a martyr, now he wants to be a cameraman, so does his best friend Mohammed. Some price that James Miller, husband and father of two young children had to pay to give some career guidance.

[Masklinn]

Still no reply to this great post. I wonder why. There's nothing more to add maybe.

I'm just moving it to the top so more people can read it.

Edit : Thank you Donut.

[ 05-26-2004, 08:31 PM: Message edited by: Masklinn ]

[Timber Loftis]

I don't have much to add, really. I'd have to know more facts first. I feel horrible for this reporter and his family, but it does not lessen my resolve against terrorists, including those who smuggle guns/weapons/bombs into Israel via the tunnels.

Should the particular incident have been handled better? Sounds like possibly it should have -- more info needed.

[Black Baron]

The point of the tv article is...??
The death of cameraman was a mistake, supposing we did kill him.
One can tell you how it is awfull to go to school in israel in a crowded bus, but the tale about the palestinians is a "much more" tear shedding.
Frankly the situation on both sides is a biiiig mess. Hardly anything new. Again i must ask the question about the point of the tv article.

[Donut]

oh yes - you killed him. I watched him die on my TV.

More information

[Donut]

Originally posted by Black Baron: The point of the tv article is...?? The death of cameraman was a mistake, supposing we did kill him. One can tell you how it is awfull to go to school in israel in a crowded bus, but the tale about the palestinians is a "much more" tear shedding. Frankly the situation on both sides is a biiiig mess. Hardly anything new. Again i must ask the question about the point of the tv article.

To show the murder of a journalist. It's not the first time a british national has been murdered by the IDF is it? Perhaps you would rather it wasn't mentioned at all.

Tom Hurndall

Carl Arrindell
Thursday January 22, 2004
The Guardian

In the spring of 2002, Tom Hurndall made a journey around Europe, which then took him on to Egypt and Jordan. He was young, a soon-to-be student, interested in philosophy - and most interested in the contrast between cultures. It was a formative experience. Indeed, an abiding image for his friends is of Tom, who has died aged 22, on his motorcycle, cigarette in hand, riding into the Egyptian desert.

Back in England, he was accepted by Manchester Metropolitan University to study criminology and philosophy. But his passion and natural gifts were for photography and writing, which he saw as ways of highlighting what was important in life. So he switched to a degree in photographic journalism.

A year ago, he photographed the million-strong London anti-Iraq war demonstration. During it, he encountered the group planning to provide human shields in Iraq against the threat of attack by Anglo-American forces.

By February 2003, he was in Iraq, having told his Manchester faculty head that he would still make his course deadlines. He was, after all, amassing a photographic record, and writing journals. But rather than sending the volunteers to hospitals and schools, Saddam regime officials detailed them to power stations and strategic targets.

Tom headed for Jordan. There he offered his remaining £500 to provide medical supplies for Jordanian Iraqi refugee camps, helped courier supplies and worked on building temporary shelters. In Jordan, he encountered the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), whose volunteers - committed to non-violence - were working with Palestinians as they faced the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. By foot, taxi and bus, Tom set off for Gaza, with the aim of recording what he saw.

He arrived in the town of Rafah on April 6 2003 and began emailing images of the IDF and the Palestinians back to his family. The tone of his journals changed dramatically. "No one could say I wasn't seeing what needs to be seen now," he wrote.

The practice of ISM members in Rafah was, while waving their passports, to accompany Palestinians as they attempted to restore water supplies, and telecommunications shot up by the IDF, and to prevent the demolition of houses. On April 11 2003 Tom, dressed in a fluorescent orange ISM vest, was at the end of a Rafah street observing an earthen mound where a score of children were playing. As IDF rifle fire hit the mound, the children fled. But three, aged between four and seven, were paralysed by fear.

Tom, having taken a boy to safety, returned for the girls. He was hit in the head by a single bullet, fired by an IDF soldier. After a two-hour delay on the border, Tom was taken to a specialist hospital in Be'ersheva, and then back to London, where he survived, in a vegetative state, until his death.

Tom was the second of four children born in Camden in north London, the son of a property lawyer and the head of a school learning support unit. He was educated at the Hall School in Hampstead, Highfield in Hampshire and at Winchester College before, back in London, joining Camden School for Girls mixed sixth form. Various jobs followed before that first trip to the Middle East and subsequent student enrolment in Manchester.

The initial IDF field report, which went to the British Embassy in Tel Aviv and to Tom's family, exonerated the soldier who had killed him. He claimed that Tom was in camouflage, and wielding a gun. In the face of a clutch of witness statements, such suggestions were withdrawn. Just before Tom's death, the soldier, a Bedouin Arab of the IDF, was indicted on six charges, of which the most serious was aggravated assault, implying no intention to kill. Since Tom was shot by a rifle with an advanced telescopic lens, his parents are demanding that the charge be murder, but they are also demanding the eradication of the "culture of impunity" with which the IDF operates in the occupied territories of Palestine.

According to B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, between September 29 2000 and December 18 2003 some 377 Israeli civilians and 80 security forces members were killed in Israel. Some 196 Israeli civilians and 180 IDF members were killed in the occupied territories.

In that period, 2,289 Palestinians were killed in the occupied territories, with many tens of thousands injured, most of whom have been civilians. From the end of 2002 to the spring of 2003, four "internationals" were killed in the occupied territories of whom three, including Tom, were British citizens. There have only been a handful of IDF investigations and just two convictions, with lenient sentences. Tom's case is a landmark. For B'Tselem's director Jessica Montell, it "has made a real contribution to the cause of greater military accountability".

Tom, blind to nationalities and borders, exuded humanity. He wanted, he wrote in his journal, "to make a difference". He did. He also had an outrageous sense of humour and will be missed, most of all, because he made those of us who were his friends smile. He is survived by his parents, sister Sophie, and his brothers Billy and Freddy.

· Thomas Peter Hurndall, student, born November 27 1981; died January 13 2004

[Donut]

Apparently, foreigners entering the Gaza Strip must sign waivers absolving the Israeli army of responsibility if they are shot!!

How bizarre!!

[Black Baron]

I agree that according to the presented information, some sadistic moron killed him and another sadist severely miamed another reporter. So?
We have several sadistic morons in IDF. All army has some, including the glorious USA army.
With all due respect to you, Donut, before saying-"IDF comits war crimes because it enjoys so" or "IDF commits war crimes out of haterd", look at your army.

Foreign reporters are hated here, i make no secret of it. The tendency to show the "poor detained palestinian in an ambulance" gets on our nerves. The palestinians smuggle everything that they want in ambulances (look at my post at "history repeats itself"), but it is never mentioned in CNN. They also do not show the suicide bombings here (or at least they did not a while ago). Their reports are one sided and biased. It is no excuse to murders, but merely an explanation of the reason. That is also the reason why USA army did not have it till now.

By the way-

I wonder how many civilians the USA army had killed over the monthes while it was in iraq. My best guess-over 3000.

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by Black Baron: Foreign reporters are hated here, i make no secret of it. The tendency to show the "poor detained palestinian in an ambulance" gets on our nerves.

Why?

By the way- I wonder how many civilians the USA army had killed over the monthes while it was in iraq. My best guess-over 3000.

Yes, and they have been copping ALOT of international flak for it too!

[Gnarf]

Originally posted by Black Baron: With all due respect to you, Donut, before saying-"IDF comits war crimes because it enjoys so" or "IDF commits war crimes out of haterd", look at your army.

Not that "other armies do dumb stuff too" isn't a good argument or anything, but I doubt Donut has an army.