On 19 October 2001, an Israeli tank shell crushed the right hand of Hamza Yasser Auda, then 22. He was shot several times in the left foot. After receiving medical treatment for his injuries, Auda's hand and two toes were amputated.
Auda is now 31 years old and the last thing that entered his mind during the assault, he said, was that a Palestinian military medical committee would hand him a certificate deeming him unfit for both military and civil service.
"The medical committee's decision is a death sentence. They want to bury me alive ... The military institution killed me twice and all I await for is a coup de grâce," Auda told Ma'an.
Auda continued: "Nobody wants to treat me justly. Have you ever heard of political asylum? I am seeking a different type; medical asylum in any country of the world. I've become a burden to my family of nine brothers and a burden on the Palestinian people."
Mid-interview, Auda got up from his seat and looked at the view from the Ma'an's newsroom of Har Homa, an illegal Israeli settlement built on the Jabal Abu Ghneim hill, and explained that 21 days after his hand was amputated, he was discharged from the police force. In 2002, Israeli forces demolished his home, and on 12 February 2003, he was detained, serving five and a half years in an Israeli jail.
"When I was in the Israeli jail, I spoke with President [Mahmoud] Abbas via telephone twice to explain my suffering and he promised to help after the Israelis released me. He told me 'Sonny, I am ready to do whatever you need.'"
Upon release, he sent an appeal to the president and was readmitted to the police service. He was discharged in 2009 at the rank of lieutenant. "I was referred to the Martyrs and Injured Foundation to receive confirmation of my case, as though they doubted I was injured."
Auda appealed to the PA Minister of Social Affairs and several other officials to receive assistance for the fitting of a prosthetic limb.
"All I want is to be treated justly. I need a prosthetic limb to help me get on with a normal life," Auda said, appealing to Abbas.
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