Aed Abu Amro, shot in the leg with a rubber bullet, Monday, November 5, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

When the image went viral it was compared to Eugène Delacroix’s famed painting “Liberty Leading the People” where lady liberty incarnate leads an armed crowd to oust King Charles X during the Second French Revolution while clutching what later became the flag of France.

Yesterday Abu Amro was shot in his leg with a rubber bullet while the Israeli navy was cracking down on the marine protests in the northern city of Beit Lahia that borders Zikim beach in Israel south of Ashkelon. I saw paramedics carry him off of the sandy shoreline. Abu Amro was struck when Israeli forces opened fire on a rally of 15 Palestinian boats unmoored from Gaza City’s port and headed towards Israeli waters. The scene was frantic as the fire came amid a barrage of tear gas also fired on the flotilla.

The flotilla protests have coincided with the Great March of Return demonstrations, meaning weekly Palestinians are facing off with Israeli forces at both the land barrier and on the seafront.
 

Aed Abu Amro winds a slingshot and waves a Palestinian flag, Friday, October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

Aed Abu Amro waves a Palestinian flag at a protest in the Gaza Strip on Friday, October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

Friday October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

Friday October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

Friday October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

Aed Abu Amro displays his iconic photograph, Friday, October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

When I spoke to Abu Amro two weeks ago, he addressed the possibility of becoming injured. At that time, he said told me he “longed to taste the lovely pain of being shot by those Israeli snipers” because “we must struggle as long as injustice and humiliation are being practiced on Gaza people.”

Abu Amro said he has not missed any of the more than six months of protest that began in Gaza on March 30, 2018 and continue each Friday. Since the blockade over Gaza began 11 years ago, he has not been able to leave the enclave. He insisted, he will continue to protest at “whatever cost to him.”

Abu Amro was pleased that his image evoked a likeness to the French painting. That day he spent a total of three hours protesting, shirtless.

“It is really good to compare my shirtless image to this topless woman. I think she will inspire me,” Abu Amro said timidly while showing the French painting on his cell phone to his friends who circled around.

Delacroix painted the iconic image in 1830 commemorating those who took up arms and marched under the motto of liberty, equality and fraternity.

“I felt proud once I saw the image delivered into my Facebook inbox by a friend,” he said, “While going to protest, I am not interested in getting my photo taken by journalists, but that one has fueled me up to continue protesting.”
 

Aed Abu Amro, Friday October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

Friday October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

Friday October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

Describing the day the photograph was taken Abu Amro said he and some friends were monitoring the march from afar when plumes of thick smoke from tires burned by protesters and tear gas fired by the Israeli military created a thick cloud.

“This chaos warmed me up,” said Abu Amro who then rushed toward the fence separating Gaza from Israel. Some have suggested Abu Amro is motivated by despair and hopelessness, but he said that he does not feel that way.

“I have never miss a single lesson at my bodybuilding club and I am a Street Workout athlete,” he said, “My people, my friends and I love life more than the whole of people around the world.”

Hassouna, the photographer who snapped the photo told Mondoweiss Abu Amro looked like a “rebel for his people’s just cause.”

“Abu Amro and everyone from his generation do not have weapons, rather stones which have become an inherited element of Palestinian culture of resistance the occupation,” Hassouna told Mondoweiss, “I am very proud to convey this image to the whole world who supports Gaza, and to the lovers of humanity and freedom.”
 

Friday October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

Friday October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

Friday October 26, 2018. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)
 

Abu Amro comes from a humble background. He lives in a 970 square foot house with his family. It is uncomfortably overcrowded. Although the weekly protest location is only three miles away from his home, reaching it is not an easy task. Abu Amro earns about $2.70 a day from his cigarette counter. “Despite my hardships, I share half of what I bring with my family, and the other half pays for a taxi to get here,” he said of his commute to get to the demonstrations, which raises the question of why he does not take a bus, like thousands of other protesters? Abu Amro said the buses are paid for by political parties and he is an independent.

“So nobody can accuse me that I support any political faction, I come alone with my desire,” he said.

Ahmad Kabariti is a freelance journalist based in Gaza.

Courtesy: https://mondoweiss.net/

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At the end of the day of the weekly demonstrations, from his tent in Abu Safiyeh neighborhood east of Jabalia, northern Gaza, Fahd prepares 15-20 kites with flaming rags dangling from their tails. They are given to well-known kite operators who Fahd trusts are able to reach the Israeli wheat fields behind the border, causing damage to the Israeli side.
 

A burning kite for Gaza, April 27, 2018. Photo by Mohammed Asad.

“This is an innovative tactic for demonstrators,” says Fahd, 25, who holds a diploma in library science. “I am proud that I am responsible for three fires broke out last week in those Israeli fields.”
 

Fahd Abu Jazar prepares a kite in Gaza. Photo by Mohammed Asad.

Last Monday, Four kites affixed with flammable cocktail were sent from Gaza at a wheat field in the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council. The fire caused immense damage, torching 25 acres of wheat. “Yediot Ahronot” reported.
 

A kite for Gaza, April 27, 2018. Photo by Mohammed Asad.
 

Israeli farmers in the damaged fields who noticed the kites quickly reached the field and put out the fire using water hoses, while fire teams were called to the scene to assist in taming the flames.
 

Kite sets a field afire inside Israel. Photo by Mohammed Asad.

In a previous incident, one such Gaza’s kite set to blaze 50 acres in Be’eri Forest, western Israel.

“At first we really did think it was a gimmick, some kind of joke—an incendiary kite—but it turns out we were wrong in a big way. This antiquated weapon is giving us serious trouble and causing heavy damages,” an Israeli farmer told Yediot Ahronot.

The same daily paper reported on Saturday: “Incendiary kite from Gaza sets fire to wheat field in Israel”.

Meanwhile kite flyer Mosbah Abu al-Atta believes that the damage caused by these kites is a big zero compared to what the Israeli troops’ bulldozers have done to Palestinian farmers’ land adjacent to the border.

“Now it is their turn to taste the bitterness when daily incursion on our wheat and pea fields,” Mosbah told Mondoweiss. Farmers in Rafah are being shot at as soon as they plow their lands, he said; and Gaza civilians do not have bulldozers or guns to avenge these attacks.

Mosbah was lighting a bulb affixed to the kite’s tail. The bulb contained coal in a piece of burlap, and doused with diesel fuel and engine oil. His son Mujahed assisted him in directing the kite.
“Let go the string!” Mosbah yelled at his son.

“Usually it goes around 2- 3 miles towards the fields after cutting the string and leaves the burning object to fall in the Israeli farms,” Mosbah added.

Neither father or son has ever taken a plane or a train. They are like more than 90 percent of the young men in Gaza, who have never left the enclave.

The kite is locally dubbed “Tabaq,” Arabic for paper plate. It shares the skies with black Israeli drones, which take films minute by minute of every spot and movement in the devastated coastal territory, a home of two million people squeezed into 140 square miles. Some kites marked with a swastika were seen flying on April 20, which was Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
 

Kite with swastika, April 20, Gaza. Photo by Mohammed Asad.
 

On Friday, for the first time, Israeli snipers hiding behind the hills warned demonstrators with a loudspeaker to keep back. “Go back, aunt, you are a virtuous lady, we do not want problems,” the loudspeaker said.
 

Gaza, April 27, 2018. Photo by Mohammed Asad.

I met that woman, Reda al-Banna, 44, and asked her why the soldier asked her to step back. “He speaks politely because he is surrounded by foreign journalists and wants to show up nicely in reports,” she told me.

“Those who are truly polite do not expel people from their lands and occupy their country,” she went on, explaining that she is originally from Jaffa and mother of nine children.

The relative calm continued until 3 pm on Friday. At that time, intense gunfire began with tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops towards thousands of protesters.
 

Reda al-Banna. April 27, 2018. Photo by Mohammed Asad.
 

“Listen, my son,” Mrs. al-Banna said. “I know the situation here well. Foreign journalists have withdrawn and left to their jobs, so now they start using violence.”

By Friday night, three Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli forces along the Israel-Gaza border, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. At least 833 Palestinians were wounded, said the ministry, despite the UN human rights chief urging Israel to stop using excessive force against Palestinian protesters.
 

Injured demonstrator, April 27, 2018. Photo by Mohammed Asad.
 

A fourth victim, a 15-year old boy named Azzam Hillal, died of his wounds on Saturday. He had been shot in the head.

The protests raised the death toll to 45 demonstrators, with more than 6,000 injured, since the mass movement began on March 30.
 

Demonstrators attempt to damage the fence separating Gaza from Israel, April 27, 2018. Photo by Mohammed Asad.
 

Demonstrators attempt to damage the fence separating Gaza from Israel, April 27, 2018. Photo by Mohammed Asad.
 

The March organizers believe that more than 30,000 Palestinians participated in Friday’s events, during which attempts were made to damage the security fence and roll burning tires toward the soldiers.
 

Mohammed al-Fayoumi, who was injured on the second Friday of the march,
walks with the help of a crutch to return to the demonstrations. Photo by Mohammed Asad.
 

Many injured demonstrators have returned to the demonstrations in later weeks.

Mohammed al-Fayoumi, 20, who was injured on the second Friday of the march, was walking with the help of a crutch a kilometer away from the bus stop where demonstrators are dropped.
 

Injured demonstrator returns, April 27, 2018. Photo by Mohammed Asad.
 

“On the day of my injury, I remember that the sniper was pointing to me to step back, but I did not respond, so he shot at my feet when I touched the fence,” said al-Fayoumi, an accounting student.

“The doctors advised me to take a rest for two weeks, but I did not pay attention to them,” he added.
 

The rallies need to be kept on fire with everyone’s participation, al-Fayoumi said. The situation in Gaza has been frozen for a long time, and daily life is miserable. The demonstrations offer the only hope of political change.

This article was first published on mondoweiss.net.
 

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