TWO CHILDREN INJURED in GOLAN EXPLOSION,
                                           LANDMINE PROBLEM CONTINUES

Device detonates in abandoned military property adjacent to the village of Buq’ata
Golan Heights, July 10th 2005: Two brothers Adham (12) and Ieham Aboawad (11) were injured following an explosion which occurred on Wednesday the 6th of June near their home in Buq’ata, Golan Heights. The boys were playing in an abandoned army shelter 2km south east of their village when one of the boys stepped on a modified explosive device, detonating it.
The children were alone at the time of the incident and suffered significant injuries to their limbs. A relative working nearby raised the alarm. Ieham was released from hospital after 5 days, sustaining deep lacerations and burns to his right leg while his right hand was pierced by shrapnel, his brother was released after overnight observation with lacerations to his leg.

Neither warning signs nor barriers have ever been erected in the area and local residence receive no information as to the location or dangers of nearby minefields. There are approximately 80 such fields spread across the entire Golan Heights, which have caused fatalities and injuries. This has mainly affected the Arab population due to a pattern of closer proximity with their villages as compared with Israeli settlements. Mine fields are often poorly marked and the Israeli military often neglects their maintenance, resulting in the loss of innocent civilian lives.

Since 1967 approximately 20 people have been killed and over 50 wounded due to mine explosions and the detonation of abandoned army equipment sometimes from previous occupying forces with children being disproportionately affected. Authorities not only lay mines in abandoned areas but also in the vicinity of military surveillance points in and around Arab residential villages.

Al Marsad - The Arab Center for Human Rights in the Golan Heights. Al Marsad is committed to tackling the human rights issues of the Arab population in the Golan Heights and calls on the Israeli the occupying power to ratify the Ottawa Convention to ban landmines and remove this indiscriminate threat to civilians. Furthermore Israel as a party to Protocol II of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons has a duty to protect the civilian population from the effects of mines it has laid, including marking and monitoring known mined areas.

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