[News] No Accident: Israel Targets Palestinian Eyes

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://imemc.org/article/no-accident-israel-targets-eyes/


  No Accident: Israel Targets Eyes

January 22, 2020
------------------------------------------------------------------------

/by Tareq Hajaj, for Days of Palestine/

Media coverage and social media posts went wild when Palestinian 
photojournalist Muath Amarneh was blinded in his left eye 
<https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/palestinian-journalist-loses-his-eye-by-israeli-bullet/1650768> after 
he was hit by a rubber bullet while covering a protest in the West Bank.

However, Amarneh was far from unique; Israeli snipers targeting 
participants in Gaza’s weekly Great Return March protests have aimed for 
the legs—and eyes. To date, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reports that 50 
protesters have been shot in the eye since the demonstrations began 
March 30, 2018—leaving them permanently blind.

“Some of these protesters and journalists were hit in the eye with 
teargas canisters, but most were targeted directly with what is commonly 
called a ‘rubber bullet,’ giving the impression they are somehow 
benign,” says Ashraf Alqedra, MD, a treating physician at Gaza City’s 
al-Shifa Hospital and spokesperson for the Ministry of Health. “But 
there is still steel at the core, and although these bullets don’t 
usually kill, they do grave damage. It is impossible to save an eye hit 
directly by a rubber-coated steel bullet.”

However, he adds, due to the Israeli blockade, there are no artificial, 
glass eyes in Gaza—only a cosmetic improvement, but one that can be a 
significant psychological aid. These are available only by traveling out 
of Gaza for treatment and permits for such journeys are often not granted.

According to data released 
<http://www.emro.who.int/pse/publications-who/monthly-referral-reports.html> by 
the World Health Organization, Gaza residents submitted 
25,897 applications to travel via Erez Crossing to receive medical 
treatment in the West Bank or Israel; an average of 2,158 were submitted 
each month. However, the Israeli government only approved 61 percent.

*04 
<https://daysofpalestine.com/uploads/images/709bbdbdcb4727e70910df241257df4b.jpg>*

*Mai Abu Rwedah: the most recent victim*

Mai Abu Rwedah, 20, grew up in north Gaza’s al-Bureij Refugee Camp in a 
family of nine children supported by a father who works as a janitor for 
a UN school. She just graduated from university, hoping to start her 
professional life as a medical secretary and contribute her income. But 
that dream was dealt a severe blow December 6, when she became the most 
recent Gazan to lose an eye to an Israeli bullet.

Abu Rwedah believes in using peaceful, but active, resistance to reclaim 
Palestinians’ right to return to their ancestral homeland. So, she has 
joined participants in the Great Return March protest since its launch 
on March 30, 2018. On September 21 of that year, she was shot by a 
rubber-coated bullet in one of her legs, but that didn’t stop her from 
participating; she kept on going.

Earlier this month, stood with a few friends about 100 meters from the 
fence that marks the border between Gaza and Israel. She glimpsed an 
Israeli soldier waving and pointing his finger to his eye. “He was 
trying to intimidate me, but I was not afraid because I was doing 
nothing wrong. I wasn’t even throwing stones,” Abu Rwedeh recalls.

The soldiers fired tear gas then, and Mai and her friends ran away, but 
still were in sight of the young man who had threatened her. “He was 
watching me; wherever I moved he kept watching. Then, suddenly, he 
raised his gun and pointed it at me. I was about to flee but he was too 
fast. He shot me in my eye.”

The bullet damaged he jaw as well. Doctors had to extract her right eye, 
since it was destroyed, Her determination, however, is intact. Abu 
Rwedeh continues to protest.


      *The youngest victim*

Mohammed Al-Najar, 12, is the second-oldest son among four children, 
supported by a father who works in a wedding hall in Khan Younis. In 
January, during the mid-year vacation from school, Mohammed begged his 
parents to allow him to watch the Friday protest with his cousins and 
other relatives, thinking it would give him an exciting story to share 
with classmates.

He was given permission to ride one of the government buses that 
collected people from the various neighborhoods, taking them to the 
protest sites. When he disembarked, teargas bombs were flying, and he 
shouted to warn those around him. Then next one hit him directly in his 
right eye.

When Mohammad learned later that his eye could not be saved, he locked 
himself in his room and stopped going to school. When he did go back, he 
struggled. “At first his marks at school dropped and he isolated 
himself. He tried to hide his missing eye,” says his mother, Um Edress

She took to him an organization that provided psychotherapy, but he 
refused to speak. Today, he is socializing, but goes mum when asked 
about his injury. *05 
<https://daysofpalestine.com/uploads/images/3a45ea6da8277a9ec8acec22299b0494.jpg>*


      *The journalist*

According to Dr. Alqedra, most people with eye injuries from the Great 
Return March are journalists or photographers.

One of them is Sami Musran 35, a photographer who works for Al-Aqsa TV. 
On July 19, he was shot times—first in his hand, the next two times in 
his shoulders and the fourth time in the chest (fortunately, he was 
wearing a bulletproof vest, so it did not harm him). The last time cost 
him his left eye.

Sami says he had received several calls from Israeli officers warning 
him not to take photos at the Great Return March. His mother also 
received calls, saying her son might be killed.

“Forty times, my Facebook account was hacked or deleted for me, and I 
received death threats as well,” he says. “But I decided to keep on with 
my work to reveal the Israeli crimes against unarmed Palestinians who 
participate in the march.”.

The night before Musran was shot, his wife tried to insist he stay home, 
but he refused.

“Munities before I was hit, my mother called me twice, saying she was 
very worried about me. But I said that nothing happens that isn’t God’s 
plan,” he recalls.

He was about 250 meters from of the Israeli fence when two women and a 
child were shot. Musran was taking photos of them and went in close. 
That’s when a rubber-coated bullet hit his eye and he lost 
consciousness. Two days later, he woke up in the intensive care unit to 
find out he had a skull fracture and an injured eye. The bullet had 
damaged the iris, retina and cornea and his vision was gone.

Today, it is hard for him to continue with his job; his depth perception 
is off, he gets headaches and the sight in his remaining eye “fades” at 
night. But, he will keep trying.

“Israel wants to blind the eyes of the truth by sending messages to 
photographers saying we will hit your eyes to make you stop taking 
photos,” he says. “But, we do not surrender.”

/*
*/

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