Losing Sight of the Future: Palestinians Blinded in One Eye

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Losing Sight of the Future: Palestinians Blinded in One Eye

When Jacqueline Shahada was blinded in one eye during a Palestinian demonstration along the Gaza border, she never thought she would lose her husband and children too.

It was November 2018 and like every Friday for more than six months, thousands of Palestinians gathered along the Gaza-Israel border demanding the right to return to lands their ancestors fled in 1948 with the creation of Israel.

Protesters burned tires and threw stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers on the other side of the heavily-guarded border, who responded by opening fire.

Amid the thousands of onlookers was Jacqueline, a slight, veiled woman in her early 30s. Even though the protests were male-dominated, she told herself women also had a right to participate.

"Suddenly, I felt something burning in my eye and I lost consciousness," she said. She had been hit by a rubber bullet, and despite medical attention, doctors couldn't save her left eye.

Her injury is hardly visible now -- just a slight glossiness from a tear in the iris -- but her life in Hamas-controlled Gaza was destroyed.

"I wish I had been killed, it would have been easier," she told AFP.

Her experience has become all too common, and AFP met with 10 Palestinians who lost an eye after being shot by the Israeli army, in Gaza, Jerusalem or the West Bank.

Some were taking part in clashes, others were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. All were left scarred and with their lives wrecked, even though in Palestinian society being wounded while standing up to Israeli occupation is often lionized.

Along the border of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army uses snipers who, according to instructions, open fire only when the soldiers are at risk from intensifying violence from Palestinian rioters.

Asked about Jacqueline's case as well as the use of live fire, the Israeli army highlighted the "security challenge" they faced.

It said "it took every possible measure to reduce the number of injuries among Gaza residents participating in these violent riots".

"There is smoke from burning tires, gas, and moving crowds. Snipers are at a distance, it's difficult," said a senior Israeli military official.

- 'Broken inside' -

Jacqueline, who studied maths, found herself stigmatized. Her children were teased at school about their disabled mother and her husband grew colder and angry.

"Society and people blame me, they say: 'Why (as a woman) did you go to the protest?'"

"I expected my family and husband would be proud of me, but I paid a high price," she told AFP in Gaza. "My husband divorced me and I lost my kids."

"If I lost an arm it would be OK, but without an eye, how can you continue with your life?

"I want to challenge the whole world, to remain strong, but inside I am broken," she said.

In the Gaza Strip, the cramped territory of two million people controlled by the militant group Hamas and under Israeli blockade, residents have grown accustomed to traumatic wounds after three wars with Israel in 2008, 2012 and 2014.

But even when there is no full-blown conflict, violence erupts. More than 8,000 Palestinians were hit by Israeli fire during the often violent "March of Return" protests which began in March 2018, according to UN figures.

Of those injuries, 80 percent were to the lower body, with only around 3 percent to the head.

In Jerusalem, despite there being no full-scale conflict, tensions remain in neighborhoods like Shuafat and Issawiya, parts of the predominantly Palestinian eastern part of the city Israel captured in 1967.

There residents complain of increasing violence from the Israeli police, which says it is responding to growing unrest by the population.

In recent years police, there have used spongy synthetic rubber bullets, deemed in theory to be less lethal. But when fired at close range, they have been known to cause deaths.

- 'I want my eye back' -

In February, Malek Issa, a nine-year-old boxing enthusiast, was hit by a rubber-tipped bullet after buying a sandwich at a shop in Issawiya.

He was on his way home from school and his older sister, Tala, immediately rang their father, Wael, to say Malek had been shot in the forehead.

"I immediately thought 'no, he must have been shot in the eye'," Wael said. "I stayed there, paralyzed for a few minutes."

Malek was rushed to hospital where his parents found him, head gaping and his left eye hollowed out.

"My son is polite, clever and got good grades at school. But this soldier came and shot him. He didn't shoot just my son, he shot the whole family," said Wael.

Malek, who now has a glass eye, sprawled disinterestedly on a sofa next to his father.

"This is not the Malek that we knew, he changed a lot," added Wael, who works in a restaurant in Tel Aviv. "At night Malek cries out 'I want my eye, I want my eye back.'"

"I tried to explain to him this is the will of God," he said, although the family struggles to understand why Malek was shot when there were no protests going on.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli justice ministry said it had opened an "internal investigation" into the case.

- 'Eye of Truth'-

For years freelance cameraman Muath Amarneh covered numerous protests in the occupied West Bank.

On November 15 last year, he grabbed his video camera and, wearing his helmet and a vest inscribed with the word 'Press', rushed to a Palestinian demonstration in the southern village of Surif.

"There was a sniper on the ground readying his weapon, saying something to the officer I didn't understand, but they were laughing," he said.

"I felt that something was going to happen to one of us. The soldiers were provoking us journalists.

"Then I felt something hit my face, I thought my head had been knocked off," he said.

"I saw there was blood on my face. I fell to my knees."

Witnesses said he was hit by a rubber bullet which had metal inside. And scans show some metal remains inside the excavated eye cavity, which now holds a glass eye.

Israeli authorities say they did not target the journalist, but Muath is convinced his injury is a metaphor for a conflict others don't want to see.

"My injury sends a message that our lives depend on the pictures we take. 'Either you will work as we like or you might die'."

The injury sparked protests, with Palestinian and Arab journalists filming themselves with a eyepatch using the slogan "eye of truth".

Months later, Muath, who is in his 30s, hasn't returned to work, still suffers from mysterious migraines and feels his "life is finished."

"As a cameraman it is impossible to work with one eye. You need one eye on the camera lens and one outside," he said.



Gazans Resort to Turtle Meat in Hunt for Food

The United Nations has warned of a dire humanitarian situation for the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Palestinian territory - AFP
The United Nations has warned of a dire humanitarian situation for the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Palestinian territory - AFP
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Gazans Resort to Turtle Meat in Hunt for Food

The United Nations has warned of a dire humanitarian situation for the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Palestinian territory - AFP
The United Nations has warned of a dire humanitarian situation for the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Palestinian territory - AFP

With food scarce in the besieged and war-battered Gaza Strip, some desperate families have turned to eating sea turtles as a rare source of protein.

Once the shell has been removed, the meat is cut up, boiled and cooked in a mix of onion, pepper, tomato and spices.

"The children were afraid of the turtle, and we told them it tasted as delicious as veal," said Majida Qanan, keeping an eye on the chunks of red meat simmering in a pot over a wood fire.

"Some of them ate it, but others refused."

For lack of a better alternative, this is the third time 61-year-old Qanan has prepared a turtle-based meal for her family who were displaced and now live in a tent in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza largest city.

After 18 months of devastating war and an Israeli blockade on aid since March 2, the United Nations has warned of a dire humanitarian situation for the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Palestinian territory.

Israel has accused Hamas of diverting aid, which the Palestinian militant group denies.

The heads of 12 major aid organizations warned on Thursday that "famine is not just a risk, but likely rapidly unfolding in almost all parts" of the territory, AFP reported.

"There are no open crossings and there is nothing in the market," said Qanan.

"When I buy two small bags (of vegetables) for 80 shekels ($22), there is no meat," she added.

Sea turtles are internationally protected as an endangered species, but those caught in Gaza fishermen's nets are used for food.

Qanan mixes the meat with flour and vinegar to wash it, before rinsing and boiling it in an old metal pot.

- 'Never expected to eat a turtle' -

"We never expected to eat a turtle," fisherman Abdel Halim Qanan said.

"When the war started, there was a food shortage. There is no food. So (turtle meat) is an alternative for other sources of protein. There is no meat, poultry or vegetables."

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has warned that Gaza is facing its most severe humanitarian crisis since the war began on October 7, 2023.

Fighting has raged in Gaza since then, pausing only twice -- recently during a two-month ceasefire between January 19 and March 17, and in a previous one-week halt in late November 2023.

The World Health Organization's regional chief Hanan Balkhy said in June that some Gazans were so desperate that they were eating animal food, grass, and drinking sewage water.

Hamas on Thursday accused Israel of using "starvation as a weapon" against Gazans by blocking aid supplies.

"If there was no famine, we would not eat it and leave it, but we want to compensate for the lack of protein," he said.