‘Just shoot us, be done with it’

By Anadolu Staff

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - “Wherever we go, you bomb us, just shoot us and be done with it,” the old Palestinian man, Abu Muhammad al-Jamal, told an Israeli intelligence officer investigator amid his arrest in the northern Gaza Strip.

Jamal, 59, exhausted by war, the cruelty of suffering, and the continuous bombing of every place he was sheltering in, wants “this to be over.”

Jamal arrived at the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, to receive the necessary treatment for his injuries after he was detained for a week by the Israeli army.

“When I was in Beit Lahia in the north, I couldn’t find a shelter,” the Palestinian Jamal told Anadolu.

“I headed to Kamal Adwan Hospital and found it full of displaced people. I then headed to schools, which were also full of displaced people,” Jamal explained.

“I also headed to the Al-Fakhoura School in the town of Jabalia but missiles bombed it, it was destroyed and no one was there,” Jamal added.

He said: “The school guard’s room was, however, intact; I sheltered there and left every few days to get food and water.”

“The clashes and bombing did not stop behind the school and on the roads surrounding it,” the Palestinian man added.

“One day, as I was eating, I was surprised by a robot approaching me and demanding that I show my ID,” Jamal narrated.

“The Israeli soldiers had sent me a robot they use for exploring dangerous areas where they spoke to me through it, asking for my ID and for me to open my coat,” he added.

Jamal opened his coat and took out his ID card. Then he said a small search plane was sent to search the room in which he lived.

After completing the search, Jamal was asked to come out and was met outside by a number of Israeli soldiers who asked him to take off his clothes and then searched him.

The Israeli soldiers handcuffed the old Palestinian man and took him to an unknown destination.

“Intelligence officers interrogated me,” Jamal said.

“I told the officer who interrogated me that wherever we go, you bomb us, just shoot us and be done with it,” Jamal said.

“This suffering is enough to drive us crazy. Enough of this madness,” the Palestinian man told the Israeli officer.

“The intelligence officer told me he wasn’t responsible for what was happening,” Jamal added.

The Palestinian man said, “The Israeli officer asked me about my neighbors and relatives who belong to the Hamas movement.”

“I told them I have not seen anyone for a long time; even my relatives only visit me once a year because I live far away.”

“After completing the investigation, the Israeli soldiers took me to a military vehicle where they beat me up, humiliated me, and then threw me out of the vehicle,” Jamal said.

The Israeli army often prevented Palestinian detainees from relieving themselves, so the Palestinian man was forced to relieve himself in his place of detention.

Jamal resorted to not eating, but after four days, he said he was dehydrated. Israeli soldiers did not pay him any attention.

Days after his arrest, the Israeli army released Jamal along with several other Palestinians through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the far south of the Gaza Strip.

Jamal is currently suffering from bruises all over his body as a result of being beaten and thrown from military vehicles several times.

The Israeli army carries out massive arrest campaigns in the areas it penetrates in the Gaza Strip.

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi in Ankara