18 January 2009: The Abu Rujailah family

January 18, 2012

“As I arrived there I found many people in the area,
working on their lands. It was calm so I felt comfortable and stayed there.
Suddenly one of the jeeps on the border stopped and bullet after bullet was
fired.”

Abdel Azim and Ma’zouza Abu Rujailah standing
besides olive seedlings

On 18
January 2009, at approximately 10:00, Israeli forces located on the border
between Israel and the Gaza Strip indiscriminately fired bullets towards
farmers working on their lands east of Khuza’a village, east of Khan Younis.
One of the farmers, Maher Abdel Azim Abu Rujailah (23), was killed when one of
the bullets penetrated his left arm and chest.

“Maher was
near me in the field. He was behind me when I heard him screaming ‘Allah Akbar’
and I found out that one of the bullets had hit him. People lay on the ground,
screaming,” recalls his father, Abdel Azim Abu Rujailah (59). Maher was carried
to a horse cart under heavy gunfire, and then transferred to a car. He was
pronounced dead upon arrival in hospital.

“On 17
January Israel declared a ceasefire,” recalls Adbel Azim. “On 18 January many
people moved back to the east of Khuza’a to check their lands and their houses
there. Maher and [his brother] Yousef
went to our lands and I followed them because I was afraid for them. As I
arrived there I found many people in the area, working on their lands. It was
calm so I felt comfortable and stayed there. Suddenly one of the jeeps on the
border stopped and bullet after bullet was fired.” According to a witness
statement Yousef (29) gave to PCHR after the killing of his brother, the
distance between Maher and the border was around 800 meters. He said the area
was calm and electricians were working in the area too.

“I wish that
they took all the pieces of our lands and Maher would still be alive,” says
Abdel Azim. He continues: “My wife suffered from two strokes since he was
killed. Since the incident I suffer from heart problems. We cannot forget him
and our suffering is continuous. We remember him when we see his clothes, his
room, and everything that he used around the house.”

“Sometimes
when I get up at night I find my daughters crying. When they see the clothes of
Maher they start to cry,” says Abdel Azim. “My children also still experience a
lot of fear. Dowlat sometimes puts her hands over her ears when she hears
planes and says ‘help me, father’. She is 24 years old and afraid in the dark.”

Abdel Azim
has also seen great changes in his wife. “She has been very affected. Before
the incident she was well but she has been suffering since. She used to be a strong
woman. Now she is crying all the time,” he says. Ma’zouza, too emotional to
talk about her son, speaks quietly: “Maher was very close to his sisters,
especially Arwa. Once he had some money he said ‘if I die, give the money to
Arwa’. The day before his death he came to me and asked me if his father could
write a will for him. I pushed him on the ground and sat on his chest. We were
joking about it.”

Besides
suffering from the loss of their son and brother, the Abu Rujailah’s are also
struggling financially as a result of the destruction and inaccessibility of
their farming lands. Together with his brothers Adbel Azim owns 4 pieces of
land to the east of Khan Younis, close to the border with Israel.

“Our lands
were cultivated with olive and orange trees and we used to sell the fruits. But
since the beginning of the second intifada the army has bulldozed it over and over
again. Before the offensive we used to go to our land regularly, stay up late
at night, and have barbeques there. People still used to live in the area. We also
had buildings there but during the offensive they were all destroyed, along
with the crops,” says Abdel Azim.

Abdul Azim
faces the same violence that killed his son when attempting to continue farming
his lands. “When I tried to replant seedlings for olive trees in October last
year they started shooting at me so I had to leave. The seedlings are now
sitting next to our house. Two of the four plots we cannot reach anymore at
all. After they bulldozed them we couldn’t reach them anymore. If we try to
access it they would fire at us. Those fields were cultivated with 50 year old olive
trees.”

The family
faces large financial losses as a result of the attacks. Abdel Azim says: “In
the past the trees in our lands were big and we used to have large harvests. We
would sell the fruits and had a good income for the house. But after the
bulldozing of the lands we stopped to benefit from the lands. It is even risky
to rebuild something; they might come again and destroy it. My sons help me
with providing for a living through other work.” Wisam is temporarily
contracted as a doctor, Ayman works in an exchange office, and Yousef is
unemployed.

Abdel Azim’s
outlook on the future is a mix of pessimism and hopes. “When I look at the
future, I don’t see an sign of improvement, even on the long run. I worry about
other wars that might come and don’t feel safe. When I leave the house it is for
30 minutes at most, and I never feel certain that I will return.” As for his
hopes, he says: “I hope that I will be able to live freely and safely, that the
occupation will come to an end, and that we can travel freely. That’s all that
we need.”

PCHR submitted a criminal
complaint to the Israeli authorities on behalf of the Abu Rujailah family on 8
November 2009. To-date, no response has been received.

————————————

The Narratives:

– 17 January 2009 – The Al Ashqar
Family

– 16
January 2009 – The Shurrab Family

–15 January 2009: The al-Nadeem family

–14 January 2009 – Muhammed Mousa

– 13 January 2009: Hibba al-Najjar

– 12 January 2009 – The Ayad Family

–11 January 2009: The Hamouda Family

– 10
January 2009: Wafa al-Radea

– 9 January 2009 – The
Abu Oda Family

– 8 January 2009: The Al-Rahel family