[News] New Gaza factory, jobs destroyed in Israeli attack

[Anti-Imperialist News]

New Gaza factory, jobs destroyed in Israeli attack

Rami Almeghari, The Electronic Intifada, 10 February 2011
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11795.shtml

"I still cannot believe my eyes as I see the machines of our new 
factory, scattered to all corners," said Rabah al-Hatto as he 
surveyed the rubble of his recently-established plastic water tank 
factory in northeast Gaza, which was bombed by Israeli warplanes 
early yesterday. "What have I and the twenty workers here done to 
find ourselves jobless?" al-Hatto told The Electronic Intifada.

The factory was due to start distributing its products in the local 
market in two weeks. "I am completely shocked," the trim-bearded 
al-Hatto said. "I never imagined that the factory in which I and my 
partners invested all our money and energy, would become rubble." As 
he spoke, al-Hatto was surrounded by workers, friends, reporters and 
a field worker from a human rights group.

"Yesterday [Tuesday] afternoon, we left the factory to go home. Just 
before 1am on Wednesday morning I heard Israeli warplanes bombing the 
area, but I did not imagine it was the factory. Later in the morning, 
I came to work to find our machines and the ceiling torn apart," 
Bashar al-Wehaidi, a technician in the factory, told The Electronic 
Intifada. "Everything in this 1,200 square meter building was hit."

Israeli air strikes early Wednesday hit a number of sites in northern 
Gaza, injuring eight persons, according to medical sources. Three 
men, three women and two children were hit by debris and shrapnel 
that struck area homes. The Israeli attacks also destroyed a medical 
storage building and damaged a school.

Near to where owner Rabah al-Hatto was seated on a chair at his 
factory site, there was a large truck badly damaged by the Israeli 
bombing and a heap of aluminum and iron bars on the ground.

"Please look! Please look! A modern truck has been struck before it 
even traveled the streets of Gaza to distribute our products. Why?" 
al-Hatto asked. Commenting on Israeli claims that the attack was in 
retaliation for several rockets fired from Gaza at Israel, al-Hatto 
said, "Oh my God! What kind of a response is this!"

Now in his early forties, al-Hatto told The Electronic Intifada the 
story behind his factory. "A year ago, my brother, others partners 
and I decided to build this factory," he said. "I used to work as a 
steelworker, but with the lack of steel due to the Israeli blockade, 
I decided to invest all my savings in manufacturing plastic water tanks."

Al-Hatto estimates the losses to him and his partners from the 
Israeli attack to be $300,000, as well as the incomes for the twenty 
now jobless workers and their families.

Bashar al-Wehaidi, the now unemployed technician, said that the 
attack was a complete injustice by Israel. "We have been working 
tirelessly over the past year in order for this important facility to 
see the light. May God compensate us such a great loss," he said.

In the vicinity of the factory, which is located in the al-Qerem 
neighborhood in the northeast of the Gaza Strip, there are a number 
of other facilities hit in the Israeli attack. Among them are a large 
medical storage building, a primary school for 600 students, as well 
private homes. The school's ceiling and windows were damaged, forcing 
the administration to suspend classes until further notice.

According to the Gaza-based health ministry, the al-Qerem medical 
storage facility was hit by a missile fired from an F-16 fighter jet, 
causing enormous damage.

"The attack on this store constitutes a flagrant Israeli occupation 
violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention for the protection of 
civilian persons in time of war, as well as other relevant world 
health conventions," Dr. Munir al-Bursh, chief of Gaza's medical 
stores with the Gaza health ministry, told The Electronic Intifada at 
his office in Gaza City on Wednesday.

The bombed facility is one of nine storage sites run by the Gaza 
health ministry according to al-Bursh, who estimates the losses from 
the Israeli attack at $400,000.

"This is a great loss, in light of the four-year-long Israeli 
blockade," Dr. al-Bursh said. "Recently we have listed 183 drugs that 
our stores are lacking as Israel continues to delay deliveries 
through the crossings into Gaza."

Israeli army sources said on Wednesday that their latest air strikes 
on Gaza were in response to five homemade rockets that landed in 
southern Israel causing no injuries and minor property damage.

Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the 
Gaza Strip.



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