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IN ANOTHER CRIMINAL ACT, ISRAELI FORCES INJURE TWO "SCRAP COLLECTORS" NEAR THE BEIT HANOUN (EREZ) BORDER CROSSING

Saturday, December 4th, Israeli forces opened fired at and injured two Palestinian "scrap collectors" near the Beit Hanoun (Erez) border crossing while they were collecting rubble and stones.

Guilty of having just approached the "buffer-zone", an illegally restricted "no-go area" along the whole border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, they have been hit in Palestinian land, though it is no longer accessible for Palestinians since the longstanding Israeli imposition and enforcement by live ammunition of the ban on entry into what constitutes about 17% of the total Gaza's territory.

Last Saturday's is just the latest of the criminal attacks against Palestinian workers, mainly "scrap collectors" or farmers in the buffer-zone by the Israeli armed forces: in an unprecedented escalation of attacks against workers, PCHR documented the cases of 71 injured and 9 killed in 2010. Unarmed, dusty and impoverished men sitting on their donkey-carts in search for some gravel and scrap metal to sell represented a threat to the powerful and sophisticated Israeli army.

If, though injured, he survives to the bullets, as Israeli soldiers often and intentionally target his knees, the "scrap collector" is likely to undergo to amputations and to become physically impaired. Specific rehabilitation in Gaza is moreover expensive and thus unaffordable and in any case seldom available. Traumas and distress are also expected to emerge and, if unable to work, it will remain to see how he will look after his family, economically and emotionally.

But last Saturday's are not only victims of the Israeli bullets. Even prior, they were already victims of the criminal Israeli policies in the oPt and, in particular, in the Gaza Strip. Here, collecting scrap, gravel, piece of concrete and bricks and other remnants of abandoned or destroyed building is just another informal occupation the local population has come up with to cope with the working and economic crisis rooted in the longstanding Israeli illegal occupation and worsened by the Israeli military operations and the ongoing illegal Israeli-imposed total closure of the Gaza Strip.

The total ban on import of virtually all construction materials is severely hampering the post "Operation Cast Lead" efforts to rebuild the basic infrastructure and meet the growing housing needs of the local population.

The UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict led by Justice Goldstone ascertained that "the destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories and residential houses was the result of a deliberate and systematic policy by the Israeli armed forces". The Mission placed responsibility upon "those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw the operations" and called upon Israel to open genuine, independent and effective investigations which to date Israel has been unwilling to undertake, as recognized by the UN-mandated Committee of independent experts led by Prof. Tomuschat.

The Mission concluded that "the devastating effects of the operations on the population were unequivocally manifest." As documented by PCHR, 2,114 houses (comprising 2,864 housing units) were completely destroyed, affecting 3,314 families (19,592 individuals), 3,242 houses (5,014 housing units) were partially destroyed.

Nowadays, the devastating effects of the war on the local population are still evident. Since the offensive and in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1860 (2009), Israel has failed to open the borders of Gaza, thus impeding, inter alia, the passage of the goods necessary for reconstruction and the housing needs of the local population. PCHR estimated that 86,000 new houses are urgently needed. According to the UN agency OCHA, despite a requirement of 670,000 truckloads of construction material, since the alleged 2010 "easing" of the illegal closure by Israel, Gaza receives only an average of 715 of these truckloads per month, standing at only 11% of pre-closure levels. This also prevents the UN agency UNRWA from implementing the 13 building projects authorized by Israel which already represent only 1.7% of the total building plan submitted by the agency. As a result, 78% of homes damaged during the Israeli offensive have not been rebuilt and as much as 20,000 people remain homeless, many of them, almost two years on, still live in temporary shelters or even in tents while this further reinforces the loss of intimacy and the feeling of isolation. The housing crisis is further increased by the practice of extensive destruction of houses carried out by Israel, particularly in the border areas.

The demand for building supplies combined with the restrictions on the import of construction materials has determined the rise of an alternative but dangerous market of recycled construction items. By contrast, the construction sector is almost completely blocked and nowadays, within the general pattern of increasing unemployment, it employs around 1,500 people compared to approximately 50,000 according to pre-closure figures.

The ongoing closure, pronounced as "unlawful" by the UN International Fact Finding Mission into the Israeli attacks on the humanitarian Flotilla, is the latest of the criminal longstanding policies by Israel in the oPt and particularly the Gaza Strip in blatant violation of all basic human rights of the Palestinian people. The trigger pulled last Saturday against the Gaza's scrap collectors is just the curtain drawing upon a planned human tragedy.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) calls upon the international community to be not a silent spectator of this human-made catastrophe and reiterates the world community's responsibilities to protect Palestinians' human rights from Israeli abuses by all means, including the enforcement of mechanisms of international criminal justice.