27 October 2005 10:16 AM

Gaza Residents Experience Effects of the Israeli Sonic Boom By Allyn Dhynes, Advocacy/PB/Comms Manager, WVJWG

An alarming new military trend has begun in the Gaza Strip just weeks after the Israeli disengagement. In addition to Israeli helicopter gunship attacks and shelling of Palestinian areas, the Israeli Air Force has begun to fly F-16 fighter jets at low altitudes over the Gaza Strip breaking the sound barrier up to seven or eight times a day. The result has been the widespread shock and trauma for Gaza’s 1.4 million residents who hear and feel the sonic booms. The Israeli Air Force has adopted this new strategy in response to attacks by militants with the rudimentary ‘Qassam’ rockets on Israeli areas adjacent to Gaza.

A sonic boom is the thunder-like noise resembling an aerial bomb a person on the ground hears when an aircraft flies overhead faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms are measured in pounds per square foot of overpressure. Overpressure over 2 to 5 pounds can likely cause structural damage, like broken windows. The low-flying Israeli war planes have done just that in Gaza in recent weeks. If over-flights are low enough it is conceivable for damage to be done to the eardrums of infants.

Yasser Toshtash, World Vision’s Gaza Manager has described his family’s experience of the effects of the breaking of the Israeli sound barrier as sudden and without warning. “All my children are having difficulty sleeping and one of my girls is wetting her bed.” Yasser and his wife, Jawaher, do their best to console their children and to help them remain calm.

Meg Audette, World Vision Jerusalem’s Design, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer after a field visit to Gaza explained her experience of sonic booms, “It was shortly after Iftar (the breaking of the Muslim fast for Ramadan) on Monday, October 24. I was outdoors in a nice outdoor restaurant in Gaza City. Children were playing, parents were watching over them and things seemed normal when suddenly, out of nowhere there was a deafening noise. Suddenly, the children were screaming and every part of me was clenched into tightened nerves. Logically I knew it was the sonic boom, but I couldn’t control the effects it had on my body.” This went on periodically during the night and woke Meg up every time it occurred. “Yasser’s kids are really shaken up and what really struck me was that I experienced this and felt very vulnerable yet all Gazans experience this on a consistent basis and they can’t get away from it. I cannot fathom how they live not knowing from one moment to the next what will happen. They are thrown into this place and don’t know how to feel.” Her experience of five sonic booms over a twenty hour period coupled with the shelling of parts of Gaza added to her sense of unease at the potential of threat to life.

Psychologist Samer Zaqut works for a counseling programme that runs clinics throughout Gaza. He explained in a recent AFP article that “these false raids are very bad for everyone, young or old. Nobody can sleep properly. Children in particular don’t feel safe.” The effects of the trauma Dr. Zaqut has documented include feelings of insecurity, incontinence, nightmares and black-outs.

An unnamed Israeli military civil liaison officer shrugged off the question of the policy of the breaking of the sound barrier when approached recently. He explained it as a measured response to attacks of Palestinian rockets on Israeli areas and was meant to deter future attacks. But Palestinians feel these measures are collective punishment and are traumatising innocent civilians.

This action is in contravention of the Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war, specifically article 33 which states: “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed,” and “collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” The ICRC commentary to the convention states the following: “that parties to a conflict often would resort to “intimidatory measures to terrorize the population” in hopes of preventing hostile acts, but such practices “strike at guilty and innocent alike. They are opposed to all principles based on humanity and justice.”

The situation in Gaza and the West Bank still remains a precarious one and Palestinians are still subject to ongoing restrictions and abuses. But the sonic boom tactic is the latest in a series of troubling signs resulting from the occupation.