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On December 23, a 17-year old boy was shot in the head while buying strawberries about 800 meters inside Gaza. On the same day, another 17-year old boy was shot in the right elbow while collecting gravel about 350 meters from Israel's border fence. On December 21, a 17-year old was shot in his right leg collecting building materials about 400 meters inside Gaza. Incidents like these occur regularly, nonviolent Palestinian civilians, including children, attacked, abused and at times killed by Israeli soldiers or police.
Gaza remains a war zone, subjected to regular Israeli incursions, drone and F-16 attacks, fishermen fired on at sea, farmers attacked in their fields, and children shot while buying fruits and vegetable, collecting gravel, wood, or other materials, grazing goats, or simply living too close to Israel's border fence. Snipers in watchtowers use them for target practice.
From March 26 through December 23, twenty-three shootings were documented, willful crimes gone unpunished even though Israeli and some Western media report them, none in America.
Israeli repression devastated all Gazans, suffocating under siege and reeling from Cast Lead's aftermath, especially those living too close to Israel's border fence, in easy range of rogue snipers able to pick them off with ease.
In addition, reports from Gisha, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Amnesty International, and other human rights groups showed little improvement since Israel's announced siege easing last June, besides regular documented instances of assaults, shootings and killings.
Yet international law absolutely prohibits targeting civilians and non-military facilities or infrastructure, regardless of circumstances. Israel remains systemically in breach, criminally complicit as a serial violator, flouting all legal principles with impunity.
Life in Besieged Gaza
"Gaza on the edge of no return," Amira Hass headlined on January 6 in the New Statesman, saying:
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