april 2005

Dear Friends:

Are you still there?

Here, Rafah children are getting killed, and the shelling is going on all over the Rafah Refugee Camp.

Please see more details about the recent massacre committed by the ISRAELI Occupation Forces targeted three boys from Rafah..

For more information, please visit www.rafahtoday.org or forward to your friends and let them know about what is going on here against humanity.

Thank you and regards!

Children's corpses in the hospital again, major shelling and the threat of death from the circling Apaches again—all the fear, all the horror--it is happening again and the people of Rafah are hiding in their houses.

The cease-fire, announced on March 17 by all the militant factions, was never absolutely respected by the Israeli army   But the level of shelling, the pace of gunfire, did slow to the point where people felt some cautious hope.   Here in Rafah, people living in areas near the Israeli settlements found themselves under sporadic fire—from both the Israeli Army and the settlers themselves—with some frequency. 


But things have taken a huge jump back today toward the horrors we hoped were over when three teenagers were killed by Israeli Army gunfire near the border in Tal-Al-Sultan.  A group of boys in their mid-teens were playing soccer in a playground in the Block J area about 150 feet from the border fence.
Palestinian witnesses and medics say the ball was kicked out of bounds and some of the boys chased it into the border zone.  The Israeli army snipers in the
guard towers opened fire.  Two boys were killed immediately.  The ambulances were prevented from reaching the boys for some time and a third boy survived long enough to have surgery at Rafah's Al Najjar Hospital, but ultimately died of his wounds. They are Khaled Ghanaam, 14, Ashraf Mussa, 14, and Hassan Abu Zaid, 15.  Other boys in the soccer game fled to safety and explained what had happened to the Palestinian security forces.From among these boys:

Sources at the hospital said the boys had multiple gunshot wounds in the chest and neck.  Initial reports from the Israeli Army called the boys "arms smugglers"
and said they ignored warning shots.  Palestinian witnesses said they were simply playing soccer and trying to retrieve a ball.

There are sketchy reports I can get by walki-talki that some of the militants have sworn revenge and are firing Qassams at the Israeli settlements, while higher-ranking militant leaders have said they will still try to preserve the cease-fire.  President Abbas has said, "We cannot accept that our children are
being killed."

People here have been worried and tense all week at reports that an extremist right-wing Israeli group is threatening to attack the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem
tomorrow.  Whatever is happening in Jerusalem, whatever the leaders are saying, the reality here is terrible.  Last night, a 30-year-old man was seriously injured by Israeli fire as he was on his way home in a border neighborhood.   Last night, all of Rafah came under shelling, and the sky is full of Apaches as I
write.


I just learned by phone from medical workers in Khan Younis that three children have been shot there in one of the areas near an Israeli settlement.  The ambulances cannot reach them.  I think it is too dangerous to try to get to Khan Younis and investigate in person.  People here are distraught.  I can hear shelling quite close to the internet café and should leave.
www.rafahtoday.org 


Children living in Khan Younis

"The world is a dangerous place to live;
not because of the people who are evil,
but because of the people who don't
do anything about it."
www.rafahtoday.org