Some Killing More ‘Moral’ Than Other

By Mel Frykberg, Inter Press Service,

RAMALLAH, Sep 18, 2010 (IPS) – Controversy is building up over a 91-year-old man, his 17-year-old grandson and a 20-year-old neighbour, all farmers, who were killed by Israeli shelling and gunfire as they tried to tend their land 700 metres from northern Gaza’s border with Israel.

The narrative according to the Israeli and foreign media is one of “self- defence”. During the last few weeks a number of crude missiles have been fired at the Jewish state by Gaza-based Palestinian fighters, causing little damage and no casualties or injuries.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) claimed the three were “terrorists” trying to shoot rockets at southern Israel.

Israel has declared a 300-metre “security zone” within Gaza and next to the Israeli border, no-man’s land. This buffer area is where some of Gaza’s most fertile land is situated. The Gaza strip is approximately 40 km long and eight km wide, and home to 1.5 million.

The exclusion zone has been strictly enforced by the IDF since the takeover of the coastal territory by the Islamic movement Hamas in 2007.

Since the blockade a number of Gazan farmers and shepherds have been killed by the IDF as they tried to farm their land and attend to their livestock. More have been injured and maimed. Some of the deaths and injuries took place outside of the buffer zone.

Controversy has been raging on the Internet between Palestinians and their supporters and supporters of Israel, over the way events were presented by the mainstream media.

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