A video has emerged of the targeting and killing by a sniper of a Palestinian civilian in Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighborhood where Israeli shelling killed dozens of civilians and caused massive destruction early on Sunday morning.
The video, documenting a war crime, was uploaded to YouTube by the International Solidarity Movement, which described the incident in a 20 July press release:
The Israeli military just shot a Gazan man trying to reach his family, during an announced ceasefire. He was with a group of municipality workers and international human rights defenders who were attempting to retrieve injured people in the Shujaiya neighborhood.
“We all just watched a man murdered in front of us. He was trying to reach his family in Shujaiya, he had not heard from them and was worried about them. They shot him, and then continued to fire as he was on the ground. We had no choice but to retreat. We couldn’t reach him due to the artillery fire and then he stopped moving.” Stated Joe Catron, US International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist in Gaza. “Shajiya is a smoking wasteland. We just passed two bombed out ambulances.”
The Israel military has also shelled Red Crescent ambulances as they attempted to retrieve injured people in the Shujaiya neighbourhood, east of Gaza City. A ceasefire was announced, during which injured and dead people, could be evacuated from the area, in which at least 60 people have been killed today.
“They said we would be able to evacuate the injured from the disaster zone, but they have been shelling ambulances,” stated Dr Khalil Abu Foul of the Palestinian Red Crescent, speaking from Shujaiya.
Now, the international volunteers, including some from the US, the UK, and Sweden, are in a rescue centre on the outskirts of Shujaiya.
Catron is also a frequent contributor to The Electronic Intifada.
This photo taken by Joe Catron shows the group of human rights defenders wearing yellow vests, and a young man in jeans and a green t-shirt. The same young man appears in the video above, shot.
Israeli war crimes have been documented on video with depressing frequency, including the 15 May sniper killings of two Palestinian teens in the occupied West Bank town of Beitunia.
However even such evidence rarely results in justice or accountability, due to the systematic impunity Israel affords perpetrators of crimes against Palestinians.
Relentless slaughter continues
Israel’s relentless slaughter continued on Monday for the fourteenth consecutive day, killing multiple members of three extended families as the death toll rose to over 500, Ma’an News Agency reported.
In Khan Younis, at least 26 members of the Abu Jami family were killed by Israeli shelling in the largest single atrocity so far. Democracy Now reporter Sharif Kouddous in Gaza captured these photos of the massacre’s aftermath.
At least 24 members of the Abu Jamaa family were killed in an F-16 strike on their home in Khan Yunis last night pic.twitter.com/KwLu8IYcxj
— Sharif Kouddous (@sharifkouddous) July 21, 2014
#pt This is what’s left of the Abu Jamaa home, a crater. It took the family 12 hours to dig out the 24 bodies. pic.twitter.com/ib5FKGZeCO — Sharif Kouddous (@sharifkouddous) July 21, 2014
