IOF restrict 800 Hajji's access to Mecca, kill two Palestinians and target medical teams in the Gaza Strip

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continued their violations of human rights in the OPT.
They attacked the town of Beit Hanoun and the eastern part of Gaza City killing two Palestinians and targeting medical teams, police forces and journalists.
Furthermore, the IOF prevented about 800 Hajji’s from travel to Mecca after closing the Erez Crossing in the northern Gaza Strip.
At approximately 12:35am on Wednesday, 5 January 2005, the IOF opened intensive fire on a Palestinian security area in the town of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza injuring three staff members: 28-year-old Hany Daoudi, 27-year-old Muhammad Matar, and 21-year-old Abdullah Shahin.
Daoudi sustained critical wounds according to hospital sources.
Additionally, Israeli forces killed 18-year-old Amjad An Najjar, a passer-by.
Medical sources reported that the IOF opened fire in the direction of ambulances arriving at the scene around 1:15am, just before tanks moved into the town and blocked the Salah Ad-Din Street.
According to an Israeli Army spokesperson, the IOF began searching the area in response to the shelling of an IOF military post in the Crossing.
The IOF collected the three wounded Palestinian police staff and transported them to Israeli hospitals one hour after they were wounded.
They detained and interrogated the ten other Palestinian policemen.
In addition, the IOF prevented 800 Palestinian Hajji’s who were supposed to pass the Crossing and travel to Mecca, from leaving and closed down the Erez Crossing.
Hajji’s had been leaving through Erez because the IOF closed the Rafah Crossing on 13 December 2004.
Occupation Forces have prevented hundreds of other Hajji’s from travel claiming reasons of “security”.
In his affidavit to the Center, Khalil Mustafa Al Sidawi, an ambulance driver, said: "at approximately 1:05am on Wednesday, 5 January 2005, we received a call from the Palestinian security post near Beit Hanoun (Erez) Crossing and several ambulances hurried to the location.
I was in the ambulance near the location waiting the permission of the Israelis to move and collect the wounded.
Suddenly, a group of Israeli military vehicles appeared and opened fire towards us.
We were well marked by the siren and the lights, and I saw many bullets hitting the ground around me.
There were seven ambulances in the locations, and we were ordered by our superiors to withdraw immediately.
It was about 3am when we left the area, and we knew that the IOF collected the wounded and took them to a hospital inside the green-line (Israel), and that there was still a body of one person on the ground.
" Al Mezan's fieldworker in Gaza reported that Occupation Forces stormed into eastern Gaza City around 4:30pm yesterday, 4 January 2005, and opened fire on a number of homes and a group of farmers living in the area.
One person, 24-year-old Muhammad Nader Khalifa, was killed when an Israeli soldier fired a bullet into his abdomen.
Five farmers were also wounded in the same attack before the IOF withdrew from the area at 5pm.
The Mezan Center for Human Rights condemns IOF's continued escalation of aggression against Palestinian civilians in the OPT, including the excessive and disproportionate use of force, restrictions of movement and willful killing, all of which breach international law, including Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights concerning every person's right to practice his/her religion.
The Center emphasizes that these violations constitute part of the IOF's grave breaches of International Humanitarian Law, and calls upon the international community to intervene to put an end to these violations.
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