Coverage by BBSNews

BBSNews - 2003-04-18 -- Rafah, Gaza Strip - April 17, 2003 - At 18:00 today Israeli army parked a tank in front of the Mosque in Rafa and began firing two bursts of machine gun fire down the street. They shot 7 year old Alva Omar in the shoulder while he was inside of his home and 17 year old Ahmed Radwan who was standing in the doorway of his house. Activists from the International Solidarity Movement have accused the Israeli army of consistently parking a tank in front of this Mosque and shooting randomly down the street of a residential neighborhood. In an attempt to prevent exactly what occurred today, the ISM activists had recently planned to set up a tent on the site where the tank parks. Unfortunately, they never succeeded in raising the tent. It was also in this area that Tom Hurndall, one of the activists, was critically shot in the back of the head while trying to move a child out of view of an Israeli sniper tower to safety.

Earlier this morning members of the ISM in Rafah received a request from local Palestinians to bring some water tanks down from the Mosque to be fixed. They had been shot up over night by the army. At 12:10 PM the ISM-group arrived and announced their intention to the army by megaphone. It took about one half hour to empty the water tanks and bring them down from the roof of the Mosque to the street. There were six bullet holes in them. Throughout this process there was no shooting or harassment by soldiers.

Approximately twenty minutes after the ISM group left, the army showed up to examine what the group had done. They then pulled back, only to return with a merkava and a bulldozer. It was then that they began firing and shot the two youth.

The preceding report was provided to BBSNews by the International Solidarity Movement.

Michael Hess is the Editor of BBSNews in Charlotte, NC. Write to the editor here. Not all submissions are published. Or visit the completely new BBSNews Blog and Forum on our front page - Please Participate in BBSNews!