THE NAMES OF THE INNOCENT WHO ARE KILLED

  

By Vera Macht 
March 5, 2011 

 
 

This article is about Omar Maruf. What makes this one so important
when every day dozens of innocent people die all over the world?
Why an article about this one?

Omar Maruf was killed by a soldier who was heavily armed, and well
equipped with everything the latest Western military industry has to
offer. Omar was wearing old, dirty clothes, and collecting stones with
his donkey. Omar was not even a so-called "collateral damage" who
was unfortunately hit by a misguided bullet or bomb during a military
attack. In our modern wars, where everything is precisely calculated,
sometimes someone is just at the wrong time at the wrong place. But
it wasn’t like that. No, a young soldier, heavily armed and well
equipped, targeted Omar, who was standing there, with shabby
clothes and stones in his hands, and decided to shoot him. A young
soldier on a sunny winter morning felt the need to kill a man his
same age who he probably considered as not so important. He knew
that this act would never have any consequences. That he wouldn’t
have to justify that deed to anyone. Because it was a Palestinian who
has no rights, whose life doesn’t count.

This article is about Omar Maruf, because his life does count.
Because his death deserves outrage and a demand for justice.
Because I've looked into the silent faces of Omar’s grieving brothers,
because I have listened to his cousins, who spoke all the more, out of
anger and helplessness. How can you just murder a young man, they
asked me. How it is possible that the Israeli soldier will not be sued,
that there is no justice, that no one cares? Why you can just kill
people like us, why you can just shoot Palestinians? Why does no one
do anything? Why no government in the world is helping us, when the
Israeli government believes that international law does not apply for
them?

So here it is, the story of the death of Omar Maruf. He was twenty
years old, and the father of a two years old son. "Don’t go too close
to the border, it's too dangerous," his cousin Talal has previously
warned him. He had no choice, Omar had responded. He had a son
who needs food. So he went to the border to collect stones. It was
9:30 in the morning of the 28th February 2011, Talal was about 700
meters away from the border, on his own land. Omar was at 400
meters, when the Israeli soldiers opened fire. He was outside the so-
called buffer zone, the 300-meter-wide strip of land along the
border with Israel, which the Israeli military has banned from
entering under threat of death. It is debatable whether it is lawful to
declare publicly to shoot any civilian of the neighbour state who is on
his own farmland close to the border. But that is not important, Omar
was over hundred yards away from this area.

Talal couldn’t see Omar from where he was standing, he didn’t know
what had happened to him, whether the shots had hit him. The
soldiers fired several volleys, and with the last volley, they shot the
donkey, Talal could see how he died. Why the donkey, one wonders,
such a pointless additional cruelty. But Talal didn’t know yet what
had happened to Omar. Shortly after, two bulldozers and a tank
broke into the land, it was impossible for Talal to come closer. Even
the ambulance from the Red Cross which he had called received no
permission to approach the donkey cart, even after several attempts
to coordinate with the Israeli side. The bulldozers began to dig a
ditch around the cart with the dead donkey, almost half a kilometer
away from the territory of their own state. Why, one wonders. Why
did they dig a ditch around the donkey cart? Shortly after, Talal
watched from a safe distance how Omar’s lifeless body was brought
into the tank. Why, one wonders. Why did they take Omar with them?
Maybe they wanted to treat him, said his cousin. Treat? For two
hours, the paramedics of the Red Cross were trying to find out what
happened to Omar, where he was, whether he was still alive. In vain.
Finally, the paramedics received a call from the hospital of Gaza City:
A body had been brought in from the Israeli Erez crossing, Omar was
dead.
"What on earth was this soldier thinking when he shot him?" his
cousin askes me. "Did he think he would pose any danger? He
doesn’t even have money to buy milk for his child. Did he think he
had money for a weapon? Did he think he would have a tank?” As if I
would have the answer. So I follow the question of why the soldiers
have taken Omar with them. They wanted to help him, the family is
convinced. I ask one of his brothers, whether traces of medical
treatment were visible on his body. He shakes his head. "No," he
says, “I have seen his body. There were no puncture marks of an
infusion, no bandages. The bullet had entered at the left side of his
body, and had come out again on the other side.” A dumdum bullet,
which causes maximum damage. Bullets, which explode on impact
inside the body are prohibited according to Geneva Convention 1889,
Declaration 3. I don’t mention that that hardly matches the version
that soldiers wanted to help. Perhaps the idea is just too reassuring
that one of them has actually seen Omar as a human being who
needs help.

But something had changed on him. As Omar's dead body reached

the hospital, a notice was fixed to his chest. "Terrorist" it said.

Omar Maruf is the eighth civilian being shot dead in the buffer zone
in the last two months. Since the beginning of last year, far more
than a hundred workers and farmers have been shot by Israeli
snipers in the buffer zone, 18 of them died.
Vera Macht lives and works in Gaza since April 2010. She is a peace
activist and reports about people´s daily struggle in Gaza
(Vera.Macht@uni-jena.de)

 
 
 
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