Meanwhile, an army jeep arrived with three soldiers. When we saw it, we ran away. The jeep stopped and the soldiers got out and started chasing us and yelling at us to stop. We didn’t stop because we were afraid of them.
After 15 minutes, we decided to go back there to take the things we had collected earlier. We were sure the soldiers were already gone, but as we came closer, we saw them hiding behind the trees and waiting for us. When they saw us, they started chasing us again and calling us to stop. They fired two shots into the air, but we kept running. Then they fired three bullets at us. Yusef was injured. We kept running because the soldiers kept chasing us.
The distance between Yusef and the soldiers was about 30 meters when they shot him. We saw them go up to him and then we saw an ambulance coming to take him. The body wasn’t returned to the family until a few days later. After the incident, two officers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, came and questioned us about what had happened.
Musa Sihweil was killed on 8 June 2003 during an attack on an army post in the Erez Industrial Zone. Four soldiers were killed in the attack.
In ‘Izbat Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, on 19 February 1995
The testimony of Musa Sihweil, 14, from ‘Izbat Beit Hanoun
The testimony was given to Bassem ‘Eid on 13 March 1995
On 19 February 1995, at about 8:30 in the morning, I went with Yusef and other children towards the garbage dump of the settlements Dugit, Nisanit and Eley Sinai to collect wood, aluminum and pieces of bread for goats. We got there at about 9:30. We left Yusef’s cart on the road and went down to the dump. We waited for the Israeli truck to arrive and dump the trash. The truck didn’t arrive, so we started searching the dump. We collected aluminum and pieces of bread.
On the day he was killed, I went with Yusef and our mother to gather wood near the settlement of Eley Sinai in order to sell it. In those days, the Israeli army allowed us to gather wood there. I loaded stuff onto the cart and went home with my mother. Yusef stayed there and went with some other guys to the nearby garbage dump, to collect copper and aluminum scraps. On the way back I heard the sound of gunfire and only afterwards the young men who had been with him told me that Yusef had been hit and that the army had taken him.
I asked the army and Palestinian Authority officers where Yusef was. At first, I was told he had been injured but was fine, and only later they told me he had been killed, but they didn’t return the body. It was an unbearable situation. We set up a mourning tent and sat there for seven days waiting for his body.
After a week, my aunt’s husband went to fetch the body, after he coordinated it with the military. It was only then that we found out they had done an autopsy. The body was in a horrific state, all deformed. The family, neighbors and friends said goodbye to him, the pain was terrible. My mother and my sisters cried and shouted. Then we buried him.
We’ve spent 24 years without Yusef. We remember him all the time. I named my eldest son Yusef to honor his memory and commemorate him. Yusef was my partner. To this day I remember our childhood experiences. We laughed a lot. Yusef fell as a martyr the day before his 19th birthday. That very morning, he told my wife that he wanted to throw a party. He was no threat to the soldiers who shot him, he was holding no weapons and was only trying to make a living. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. After the incident, we filed a civil claim against the Israeli army and received a measly sum of about 20,000 shekels.
Our family suffered a lot and was hurt in other incidents. In 2004, when the army entered Beit Hanoun, my brother Hilal was hit by a bullet in his left thigh. He almost had his leg amputated, but in the end they managed to save it, and to this day he has platinum in his leg. Yusef’s friend and our neighbor, Musa Sihweil, fell as a martyr in 2003 at the Erez Checkpoint. As a result of that incident, the army demolished our entire area – Musa’s house and ours. We rented a house and after two years, built a house with our money. My wife and I got a house from the Palestinian Authority in a-Sheikh Zayed in Beit Lahiya and lived there with our children.
In the 2014 war, my father, mother and brothers were at home and the Israeli military fired shells indiscriminately at houses. My father took all the children to the UNRWA school and then returned home and stayed there with my mother. In one shelling, my mother was hit by shrapnel in the head. We took her to the hospital, where she was treated and then released. Meanwhile, my father went to his second house in Beit Hanoun, where his second wife lives with their children and grandchildren. He took all the children and grandchildren from there, too, to the UNRWA shelter, and then went back and stayed at home with his second wife. He told me they were elderly and the military wouldn’t hurt them. But then a tank fired at their house and he and his wife were killed. That day there was a ceasefire so I went over. I found their bodies in pieces. I can’t describe what I saw, it was horrendous.
My life has become a disaster. Both my brother and my father were killed. Today I am in charge of the whole family, which is a very big burden. We all leaned on my father, and I’m going from one crisis to another. If Yusef were alive, he would share the burden me and help me. He really loved to work and help. I was hoping to see him get married and have children. The military took my happiness and my joy. May God have mercy on Yusef, my father and his wife.
Ramzi Abu ‘Amshah, Yusef’s brother, 45 and a father of 11, spoke with B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd this year and described the loss:
My brother Yusef and I used to work in Israel. On one occasion, soldiers caught us, because we didn’t have work permits. I was arrested for about three weeks while they sent my brother home. After that we couldn’t go into Israel to work anymore. The financial situation at home was difficult so to help my dad, Yusef and I bought a cart and started selling vegetables. Sometimes we also collected wood, copper and aluminum from the garbage.
After studying the investigation file, the Southern Command Advocate decided in his report, which was approved by the MAG, to take disciplinary action against an officer and a soldier who were connected to the incident.
Letter to B’Tselem dated 4 February 1997 from Legal Officer Lior Eisenfeld, Assistant to the Chief Military Prosecutor.
The offense attributed to the soldier was illegal use of a firearm under Section 85 of the Military Justice Law. We do not have the results of the proceeding and given the amount of time that has elapsed, we cannot locate them.
Letter to B’Tselem dated 9 October 1997 from Col. Einat Ron, Chief Military Prosecutor