Bulldozes Agricultural Lands, Destroys Palestinian Houses
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, 21 February 2010
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has increased its attacks on Palestinians near the Gaza Strip's eastern and northern borders with Israel; an area inside Gaza that the IOF has declared as a security 'buffer zone'. Al Mezan's investigations indicate that the IOF always fires at any Palestinians near the eastern and northern borders. The IOF's attacks do not follow a specific pattern. The IOF claims that its soldiers fire at Palestinians only when they are 300 meters from border fence. However, while some attacks have occurred close to the border fence, many other attacks occurred when civilians were more than a kilometer from the borderline.
According to Al Mezan's continuous monitoring, at approximately 6am on Thursday 18 February 2010, Israeli tanks and four armored bulldozers moved under the cover of reconnaissance drones nearly 650 meters inside the Al Msadar village in the Al Maghazi refugee camp. The IOF stationed itself there while the bulldozers leveled about 18 dunums of agricultural lands and destroyed three rural houses. At approximately 4:30pm on the same day the IOF withdrew from the area.
According to field investigations conducted by Al Mezan, the IOF destroyed the house of Moaen Ali Salman Abu Said, 28. The IOF used loud speakers and ordered the residents of that house to leave the house before destroying it. The Abu Said family did not manage to collect their furniture from the house. The house was 175 square metres and five persons lived there. The IOF also destroyed the house of Salim Salman Awad Ibn Said, 67, two-storey and 120 square meters. Eight persons lived there, four of them children. The IOF also leveled 10 dunums planted with fruitful olive trees. An irrigation network and water well were destroyed as a result. In addition, the IOF destroyed an 80 square meter rural house. The IOF also fired indiscriminately in that area. Several houses were partially damaged.
Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights strongly condemns the continued, systematic attacks by the IOF against the Palestinian civilians, particularly farmers who work in their fields near the borders. Al Mezan warns of the human rights implications for Palestinian civilians which emanate from Israel's attempts to enforce the security 'buffer zone' inside the Gaza Strip. Al Mezan's monitoring indicates that the IOF attacks linked to the 'buffer zone' occur within an area that extends well beyond one kilometer from Gaza's eastern and northern borders.
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Peace activist Rachel Corrie died while protesting in front of a bulldozer trying to destroy a Palestinian home in Rafah in March 2003. Photograph: Denny Sternstein/AP
