Gaza protests: ’Each time we heard a bullet, a protestor fell’ | Middle East Eye | Mohammed Omer |
Sunday 11 October 2015
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gaza-protests-each-time-we-hear-bullet-protestor-fell-764478350
(...) “Usually when we protest, the Israeli troops issue warning shots first,” the teenager, who did not want to give his name, told MEE.
“This time, the soldiers are shooting directly, and each time we heard a bullet, a protestor fell,” he said as he watched his friend’s body being transferred from the motorcycle into an ambulance nearby.
Several Palestinian journalists confirmed the phenomena, saying that they believed live bullets were fired at specific targets.
A survivor of Friday’s protests, 18-year-old Jihad Mohsen, told MEE he was standing right next to fellow youths as they were gunned down and killed.
He said there were about 30 people on the frontline, close to the fence, just tens of meters away from Israeli troops who stood sheltered behind some man-made sand barriers, dug out for protection by Israeli bulldozers.
Israeli soldiers stand on the Israeli side of the border (MEE / Mohammed Asad)
“We were carrying our Palestinian flags, and throwing stones in retaliation, and suddenly the live ammunition was directly hitting us, at which point [19-year-old] Mohammed al-Reqeb was shot,” Mohsen said.
“There was no occasion where a bullet was fired without someone being hit and falling - it was deliberate, they were aiming directly at us,” he told MEE.
Medical staff treating the wounded at Khan Younis’s European Hospital told MEE that they were shocked at the numbers of victims with precise bullet wounds, which they say appeared to be deliberately aimed not to injure, but to kill or cause the maximum amount of damage.
An on-duty doctor at the hospital reception said he felt the injuries were “designed” to create patients with long-term disabilities.
Another doctor at Gaza European hospital who is not authorised to speak by his ministry, told MEE that some of the wounds were from snipers, who knew exactly what part of the body to hit, to kill instantly.
He said that these kinds of injuries were rare and that Gaza medical crews were more accustomed to receiving patients with “indiscriminate wounds” that were caused by shelling or Israeli air strikes.(...)