GAZA CITY: Five Palestinians were injured Tuesday by Israeli gunfire while scrounging for construction material in the rubble near Gaza’s northern border with Israel, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli military said it had opened fire on three Palestinians approaching the border fence after they failed to respond to warning shots.
Adham Abu Selmiya, a spokesman for the Hamas-run medical services in the Gaza Strip, said five Gazans in their early twenties were shot as they scavenged for building material in Beit Lahiya along the border with Israel.
Abu Selmiya and ambulance workers, who took the Palestinians to the nearby Kamal Odwan hospital, said all five sustained light to moderate gunshot wounds to their legs.
The Israeli military said it shot the men after firing into the air to try to keep them away from the border area.
"The area adjacent to the security fence is a combat zone, used by terrorist organizations to execute attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers and to plan kidnapping attempts," an Israel Defence Forces spokeswoman told AFP.
"During this morning’s incident, soldiers fired warning shots in the air a number of times in an attempt to drive the suspects away from the fence," she added.
"When the suspects failed to consent, the force fired towards their lower bodies and identified a hit."
The military said it was only aware that three Palestinians had been injured in the incident.
Dozens of Palestinian men and teenagers crowd into the northern area of Gaza near the Erez crossing into Israel every day, sifting through the rubble of buildings destroyed during military incursions for construction material.
An Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip bans the import of almost all building materials, forcing Gazans to recycle the remnants of destroyed structures to rebuild homes, schools and businesses.
The Israeli blockade was imposed after the 2006 kidnap of soldier Gilad Shalit by Gaza militants. It was tightened a year later when Hamas seized power in the territory, ousting its more moderate Palestinian rivals from Fatah.
The restrictions were eased in July this year, following mounting international pressure after nine Turkish activists were killed in a May 31 commando raid on a flotilla of aid ships trying to breach the blockade.
Meanwhile, a partial lifting of Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip has barely improved life for residents of the Palestinian coastal enclave, a coalition of humanitarian groups said on Tuesday.
A report by 22 organizations, entitled "Dashed Hopes: Continuation of the Gaza Blockade," says an Israeli pledge to liberalize the import of materials for UN and other international building projects has only dented a backlog.
But the study provoked an angry response from Israel, with the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) slamming the assessment as "biased and distorted" in a statement.
"Israel has so far only approved the import of materials for 25 UNRWA construction projects for schools and clinics, a mere seven percent of UNRWA’s entire reconstruction plan for Gaza," the new report said of the UN Relief and Works Agency, charged with caring for Palestinian refugees.
"Even for these approved projects, only a small fraction of the required construction materials has actually been permitted to enter Gaza so far," it added.
"Only a fraction of the aid needed has made it to the civilians trapped in Gaza by the blockade," said Jeremy Hobbs, director of Oxfam International, in a joint statement accompanying the report.
An Israeli military report on shipments said that during October, 223 truckloads of cement, iron, aggregate and other supplies were delivered for five UNRWA projects, three USAID programs, and for work on water treatment plants supervised by the World Bank and by German development bank KfW.
The military also said that from November 28 it was allowing exports of Gaza-grown flowers and strawberries.
A devastating 22-day Israeli military offensive, which ended in January 2009, reduced much of Gaza’s infrastructure and many private homes to rubble.
For 18 months afterwards, Israel banned the import of cement and other construction materials, saying that it was likely to be used by the militant Islamist Hamas group to fix bunkers, tunnels and other fortifications.
It relented in July this year, in response to mounting international pressure to ease restrictions after nine Turkish activists were killed in a May 31 commando raid on a flotilla of aid ships trying to breach the blockade.
In response to claims in the report, COGAT said that since the government decision to ease the blockade, the number of trucks entering Gaza on a daily basis had increased "by 92 percent."
With regards to the broad ban on exports, COGAT said the issue was "intrinsically connected to security and logistical concerns at the Kerem Shalom crossing," adding that Israel was renovating the terminal to increase its capacity in a project due to be finished in mid-2011.
Israel says its limits on exports from Gaza are justified by several incidents in which Palestinian militants have concealed themselves or their weapons in crates being moved into Israeli territory.
In 2004, two militants smuggled themselves into Israel inside a shipping crate and killed 10 people at the Ashdod port.
Israel’s policy on building materials was to allow in the necessary items "for specified projects that were approved by the Palestinian Authority" that would be under international supervision, COGAT said.
"Since the cabinet decision, Israel has approved 64 new projects … 26 of them for UNRWA," it added, noting that 1,052 trucks of construction material had entered Gaza in the same period.
Israel now allows in everything except arms or materials which could be used to make weapons or explosives by militants, who regularly fire rockets and mortar rounds across the border.
Building supplies may only be brought in by recognized international organizations managing specifically-approved projects. And Israel continues to maintain a complete naval blockade on the territory.
The blockade policy was first adopted in June 2006 after Gaza militants snatched Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit during a cross-border raid. He is still being held somewhere in Gaza.
Restrictions were tightened a year later when Hamas seized power in the territory, ousting its more moderate Palestinian rivals from Fatah.
