GAZA, (PIC)
The spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), James Elder, said that he witnessed a horrific Israeli murder in Gaza that targeted two fishermen while they were fishing in the Gaza Sea.
The UN official explained in an interview with the American CBS News network that two Palestinian men who were fishing in the waters off the coast of the Gaza Strip were killed last Wednesday by Israeli troops who fired at them with automatic weapons.
Elder explained that he was in a truck delivering aid when he saw about 10 Palestinian men fishing with a single net in knee-deep water, before an Israeli tank arrived and opened fire on them.
“I was standing outside the vehicle and suddenly saw a tank coming and then firing and saw those two men seek to run from their fishing spot and then hit the sand,” Elder said.
The UN official confirmed that he heard the sound of an automatic weapon coming from near the tank before the two men fell.
He said his group eventually made contact with the military and that some of the fishermen who fled the shooting were able to return to the beach to retrieve the bodies of those who were killed.
“I don’t know if they were brothers or friends. I just saw those people carrying their dead friends or relatives, obviously in tears,” Elder told CBS News.
Asked if the men in the water had shown any signs of hostility toward Israeli forces, he told CBS News: “They were fishermen. They were fishing.”
Elder said he and his team were prevented from delivering their aid shipment and forced to turn back that day.
“We spent about eight or nine hours at military checkpoints. In the end, our truck, despite all the approvals, was denied access and returned … Yes, we will try again. Obviously, we’ll try again. But this is consistent with the denials that we and many other agencies have experienced,” he said.
“It felt again like Day 1 of the war,” he said, “Walking in this hospital, absolutely heaving with people, children, 3-year-olds, 7-year-olds with these grotesque wounds of war, head injuries, and the burns. children are on the floor. They’re on makeshift stretchers. They’re on beds. Gaza has seen the systematic devastation of its health care system,” he concluded.
