It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Death comes quickly at a place like this. On sunny winter days, when the smell of the night’s rain is still in the air, as if it would have brought some hope for the raped, barren land of Gaza, overrun hundreds of times by Israeli tanks and bulldozers. The land between the foothills of the village of Bait Hanoun and the Israeli border, guarded by watchtowers, soldiers, snipers, helicopters and drones. A land in which death is a regular guest. But despite all that, the 65-year-old Shaban Karmout probably had something like hope when he woke up on that winter morning. His house is in exactly this 300 meter wide strip of land in the so-called buffer zone.
He has built his house 40 years ago, in 1971, when Gaza was already occupied by Israel, and yet he had thought to have a future there for himself and his family. Shaban began to plant fruits, his land was full of palms and trees, lemon, orange, clementine and almond trees were growing there. He had a good life.
Israel Defense Forces -Weapons and equipment
Israel has also installed a variant of the Samson RCWS, a remote controlled weapons platform, which can include machine guns, grenade launchers, and anti-tank missiles on a remotely operated turret, in pillboxes along the Israeli Gaza Strip barrier intended to prevent Palestinian militants from entering its territory
The Israeli-Palestinian war: escalating to nowhere
By Anthony H. Cordesman, Jennifer Moravitz
pg 147
The IDF took this concept of reduced visibility and "remoteness" to a new level during the planning for the evacuation of the settlements in Gaza in the summer of 2005. With the establishment of a fence along the border with Gaza following the pullout, and building on the remote observation posts already established in Gaza, the IDFplanned to install a system of remote cameras, sensors, and gun turrets. The sensors and cameras would assist soldiers stationed miles away in front of viewscreens in identifying infiltrators. Soldiers could then remotely target the infiltrators with the machine gun turrets, weapons that are designed to have a range of 1,500-2,000 meters. It should be noted that the observation posts are operated largely by women and that the new system would also be run by women. The exact reason for preferring men over women in this role is unclear.
People get shot in the limbs because those are the orders, you don't immediately shoot to kill, there's a shot in the air to warn and a shot to the legs to stop first. An "automated turret" *missing* and hitting the limbs is highly unlikely as the body is much easier to hit than the legs.
Silence is Complicity: The methodical shooting of boys at work in Gaza by snipers of the Israeli Occupation Force
by Dr. David Halpin
The lack of any work and the extreme poverty of the large extended families has drawn the boys and men to scavenge for broken concrete ('gravel') in the evacuated Eli Sinai 'settlement' and in the industrial zone by the Erez border control post at the northern limit of the 'Strip'. The factories of the industrial zone have been progressively demolished by Israeli shelling etc. They are seen to the west as one enters Gaza through Erez. A donkey and cart, shovel, pick, sieve, muscles and courage are the tools. The rubble is used to make cement blocks and poured concrete with the cement that is imported largely through the tunnels. Many dozens of men and boys do this work for precious shekels in the shadow of manned watch towers and under 'drones' above.
The 23 boys who have been shot between 26/03/10 (Said H) and 23/12/10 (Hatem S) are listed in the table below with skeletal facts. These points are made:-
· In 18 there were single shots and not automatic fire
· The reported range in most cases confirms that the weapon was a sniper's rifle in the hands of a sniper
· Almost always there were many dozens of other men and boys at work; these victims were picked off
· A leg was the target in most cases. Where the leg was not the target it is likely the sniper was 'aiming up' so the flank, elbow etc was hit instead.
· No weapons were being borne by the gravel workers so they posed no threat to the Israeli Occupation Force personnel. Instead they were bending their backs to their menial work within their internment camp
· The histories refer often to the recovery of the injured boy by friends and relatives under fire. This was a feature during 'Cast Lead' or instead the paramedics were barred from getting to the victims so they died without care.
The information comes from the Defence for Children International (Palestine section) website, there isn't much context, there's no description of the Israeli soldiers' explanation for these events, and the article just sort of ends.
You couldn't have brought a worse example of the "occupation and oppression".
If I were you I'd be focusing on the lock up of borders, the blockade, any and every restriction Israel puts on aid and goods trucks, etc, these are symptoms of occupation and oppression.
how Israeli policies and attacks have ravaged Gaza's agricultural sector
The United Nations agency OCHA reports that roughly one-third of Gaza’s agricultural land lies within the buffer zone, its width varying from half a kilometer to two kilometers.
Ahmed Sourani, of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC), told the Guardian newspaper: “It is indirect confiscation by fear. My fear is that, if it remains, it will become de facto.”
According to PARC, the fertile farmland in and next to the buffer zone was not long ago Gaza’s food basket and half of Gaza’s food needs were produced within the territory.
In fact all of these children seem to have a small blood stained bandage on them when they should be wearing casts and have shattered sown up legs.. What gives?
The zionist Kill Towers are sometimes on the Israeli Apartheid Walls and overlook automated kill zones (ATZ) around Palestinian towns and villages. Most victims get hit in the lower limps as they approach the ATZ due to the inaccuracy of the automated machine guns especially when they approach at an angle.
I mean look at it-
imemc.org...
but Israel can't be expected to allow people to harvest their fields when it can easily be used to attack Israeli soldiers, don't you think?