Eva Bartlett: Casualties rising in Gaza’s “buffer zone”

Eva Bartlett, The Electronic Intifada, 30 June 2009

“There was an explosion, maybe 20 meters away. Then another immediately after. I realized I had been hit,” said Saleh Ahmad al-Medani, pulling aside the collar of his T-shirt to show one of three places where he was punctured by the metal darts known as “flechettes.” The razor-like flechettes are dart-shaped bits of metal packed by the thousands into a single shell that are approximately two inches long.

At just after midnight on 3 June, the 17-year-old was walking home from a friend’s house in Umm al-Nassir, a collection of tents and dilapidated houses in the northwest Gaza Strip, just more than 1 kilometer from the northern boundary with Israel.

Days after being pierced by the flechettes, al-Medani’s wounds not only haven’t healed, the darts are still lodged in his neck, shoulder and leg. “The doctor told me that if I don’t feel too much pain, he won’t operate to remove the darts,” the youth said. “I feel light pain still, but what can I do?”

This is not an unusual situation in Gaza, where Israel has repeatedly used the dart bombs. Due to their design, flechettes dig deeply into their target — flesh, cement and metal alike — with their “tails” frequently breaking off, leaving multiple injuries and rendering them nearly impossible to extract without inflicting more injury in the surgical search. In most cases, doctors opt against surgery, leaving the darts inside the victim’s body.

[Read the report]