General

Israeli snipers kill two Gaza boys

Maureen Clare Murphy 6 September 2019
Israeli occupation forces shot and killed two Palestinian children during Great March of Return protests, Gaza’s health ministry stated on Friday.

The ministry named one of those slain as Ali Sami Ali al-Ashqar, 17. He was reportedly shot in the head east of Jabaliya, northern Gaza.
Palestinian outlets published this photo of the teen after his death.
The second killed child was identified as Khalid Abu Bakr al-Rabai, 14, shot in the chest east of Gaza City.
Sixty-six others were injured during Friday’s protests, 38 of them by live fire.
Nearly 50 children are among the 210 Palestinians who have been killed during the protests since their launch in early 2018.
Nineteen Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza so far this year, most of them during Great March of Return protests.
More than 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza have severe bone infections after being shot during protests, according to Doctors Without Borders.
“Their serious and complex wounds require months – if not years – of dressing, surgery and physiotherapy,” Doctors Without Borders stated this week.
“Infections prevent recovery, and to make matters worse, many of them are resistant to antibiotics.”
Half of the more than 7,400 Palestinians who have been wounded with live ammunition during the protests have “open fractures, where the bone is broken near the wound,” the world medical charity added.
Patients with bone infections may be isolated during treatment for several weeks, making it a long and difficult road to recovery.
“Treating these infections would be tough anywhere in the world, but in Gaza it is even tougher,” according to Doctors Without Borders. Gaza’s health system is “reeling” from more than a decade of Israeli blockade, as well as Palestinian political division and Egyptian restrictions on Palestinian movement.
Basic services are yet again being treated like a political football with Qatar reportedly halving the amount of fuel it funds to operate Gaza’s sole power plant.
“As a result, Gazans will now get only five to six hours of electricity per day, down from the eight they were getting until now,” the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
Sources told the paper that the funding cuts are meant to put pressure on Hamas, who wants to be made partner in or receive funds from the implementation of development projects in Gaza.