<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Three Rock Collectors Injured by Israeli Army in&nbsp;Gaza]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p><span class="article-details"><span class="article-detail">Monday February 07, 2011 15:03</span><span class="article-detail"> by Ramona M. &#8211; IMEMC and Agencies</span></span></p>
<blockquote class="article-intro"><p>On Sunday, three Gazan rock collectors were shot and injured by Israeli soldiers.</p></blockquote>
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<p class="article">On  Sunday morning, Abdallah Rabea Odwan, 45 years old from Beit Lahiiya,  was working with many others outside Abu Samra, around 700 meters from  the border, when they were fired upon by Israeli soldiers. He was hit  once below the knee and taken to the Kamal Udwan Hospital. No bones were  broken, and doctors say he will recover over the next few weeks.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, 19 year old Bilal Abdallah al-Daour and 22 year old Ibrahim  el-Nabaheen were fired upon whilst working in the Shuja’iyya  neighborhood to the east of Gaza city. Hundreds of people were out  collecting rocks in the area, about 500 meters from the Israeli border.</p>
<p>At around 8:30am the first shots rang out, but no one was injured. The  soldiers stopped shooting and, assuming it was safe, people returned to  work. An hour later, the soldiers started shooting again.</p>
<p>Bilal was shot in the knee and Ibrahim was shot in the pelvis. The other  workers rushed them to a nearby car, but the car was out of gas due to  the shortages caused by the closing of the tunnels under the Egyptian  border. Bilal was finally taken to Shifa Hospital in Gaza city. When he  was found, he did not know where Ibrahim had been taken.</p>
<p>These are not the first rock collectors shot by the IDF, as countless  others have been shot over the last two years in the ever expanding  buffer zone. Originally 50 meters under the Oslo agreements, it was  expanded to 150 meters in 2000, and then to 300 meters in January 2010.</p>
<p>In reality, the buffer zone is not 300 meters: Adballah was shot 700  meters from the border; others have been shot at up to 2 km from the  border – The size of the zone is at the discretion of the Israeli  military and they impose the size at differing distances on different  days.</p>
<p>The Gazan economy has been choked by the three year Israeli siege.  Unemployment is widespread, and so poverty – combined with the  impossibility of importing cement to rebuild the thousands of homes  destroyed and damaged during Operation Cast Lead – forces people to  collect rocks.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.imemc.org/article/60585">Three Rock Collectors Injured by Israeli Army in Gaza &#8211; International Middle East Media Center</a>.</p>
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