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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://imemc.org/article/no-accident-israel-targets-eyes/">https://imemc.org/article/no-accident-israel-targets-eyes/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">No Accident: Israel Targets Eyes</h1>
January 22, 2020</div>
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<p><img
src="https://imemc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/eyes-DOP-e1579699980830.jpg"></p>
<p><em>by Tareq Hajaj, for Days of Palestine</em></p>
<p>Media coverage and social media posts went wild when
Palestinian photojournalist Muath Amarneh was <a
href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/palestinian-journalist-loses-his-eye-by-israeli-bullet/1650768"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">blinded in
his left eye</a> after he was hit by a rubber bullet
while covering a protest in the West Bank.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>According to <a
href="http://www.emro.who.int/pse/publications-who/monthly-referral-reports.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">data released</a> 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.</p>
<p><strong><a
href="https://daysofpalestine.com/uploads/images/709bbdbdcb4727e70910df241257df4b.jpg"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img
src="https://daysofpalestine.com/uploads/images/709bbdbdcb4727e70910df241257df4b.jpg"
alt="04"></a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Mai Abu Rwedah: the most recent victim</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3><strong>The youngest victim</strong></h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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</p>
<p>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. <strong><a
href="https://daysofpalestine.com/uploads/images/3a45ea6da8277a9ec8acec22299b0494.jpg"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img
src="https://daysofpalestine.com/uploads/images/3a45ea6da8277a9ec8acec22299b0494.jpg"
alt="05"></a></strong></p>
<h3><strong>The journalist</strong></h3>
<p>According to Dr. Alqedra, most people with eye injuries
from the Great Return March are journalists or
photographers.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”.</p>
<p>The night before Musran was shot, his wife tried to
insist he stay home, but he refused.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p><em><strong><br>
</strong></em></p>
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