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JERUSALEM — What was billed as a six-week campaign of peaceful protests in Gaza, culminating in a mass march toward Israel, descended almost immediately into chaos and bloodshed on Friday, with at least eight Palestinians reported killed by Israeli soldiers in confrontations along the border fence.
Link Source (New York Times) : https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/world/middleeast/gaza-israel-protest-clashes.html
Soon after the campaign began Friday morning, the Israeli military reported that Palestinian protesters were rioting in six locations along the border, rolling burning tires and hurling stones at the fence and at Israelis soldiers beyond it. Later, it reported Molotov cocktails being thrown at soldiers, as well.
By late afternoon, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said that eight Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire, and more than 1,000 injured.
Declaring the area surrounding the Gaza Strip a closed military zone, the Israeli military said it was “responding with riot dispersal means and firing towards main instigators.” Israeli forces fired live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas.
The Palestinian organizers had called for peaceful protests, with men, women and children bused to tent encampments that popped up in recent days about 700 yards from the border with Israel.
About 20,000 demonstrators came to the tent encampments. Most appeared to have stayed well away from the border fence and did not engage in violence.
Hamas, the Islamic militant group that dominates Gaza and is known for its armed resistance, has joined the call for a different form of popular struggle, referred to as the Great March of Return, or the March of the Million.
The idea was to protest Israel’s more than decade-long blockade of Gaza, which restricts the movement of people and goods in and out of the coastal territory, and which Israel calls a security imperative, as well as to highlight Palestinian demands for a right of return to the lands that became Israel 70 years ago. A majority of Gaza’s two million residents are refugees of the 1948 war that surrounded Israel’s creation, or their descendants.
Girding for violence, Israel had almost doubled its forces along the border, deploying snipers, special units and drones, and warning that it would act to prevent any breach of the border fence or violation of Israel’s sovereignty.
The idea for the border encampments, in about half a dozen locations, was initiated by a Gazan social-media activist, Ahmed Abu Artema, a political independent, and was soon adopted by Hamas, which has been promoting the protest on its social media platforms and urging Palestinians to participate.
“Our will in achieving the actual return to our lands is more powerful than jet fighters and a gun,” Mr. Abu Artema said by phone on Friday as he was on his way to the protest. “This march is rightful and will not be used and exploited for political agendas.”
For Israel, the prospect of unarmed mass protests posed the challenge of trying to maintain deterrence by threatening harsh measures, while also trying to avoid mass civilian casualties. Amos Harel, a military analyst for the liberal newspaper Haaretz, wrote on Friday that the Israeli military “will have to maneuver between two goals likely to be contradictory.”
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, warned in a statement that any shoot-to-kill policy against unarmed demonstrators would be unlawful, unless the soldiers’ lives were threatened.
Before the larger clashes broke out, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reported that a Palestinian man, a farmer, was killed near the border zone early Friday by Israeli artillery fire — one of the five it reported dead later in the day. Describing the incident, the Israeli military said one of its tanks had fired on two Palestinians who approached the border and were “acting suspiciously.”
With Gaza’s economy collapsing, fears of an explosive response have mounted. In recent years, first Egypt and then the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank joined Israel in squeezing Gaza financially.
Israel’s hard-line defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, warned Gazans to keep away from the border in a post on Twitter written in Arabic. “The Hamas leadership is risking your lives,” he wrote. “I advise you to get on with your normal everyday lives and not to participate in the provocation.”
Israeli soldiers shot tear gas across the border with Gaza on Friday as Palestinians gathered for demonstrations expected to last six weeks
Muslims at Friday Prayer at one of the tent cities set up for the demonstrations
Link Source (New York Times) : https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/world/middleeast/gaza-israel-protest-clashes.html
Soon after the campaign began Friday morning, the Israeli military reported that Palestinian protesters were rioting in six locations along the border, rolling burning tires and hurling stones at the fence and at Israelis soldiers beyond it. Later, it reported Molotov cocktails being thrown at soldiers, as well.
By late afternoon, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said that eight Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire, and more than 1,000 injured.
Declaring the area surrounding the Gaza Strip a closed military zone, the Israeli military said it was “responding with riot dispersal means and firing towards main instigators.” Israeli forces fired live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas.
The Palestinian organizers had called for peaceful protests, with men, women and children bused to tent encampments that popped up in recent days about 700 yards from the border with Israel.
About 20,000 demonstrators came to the tent encampments. Most appeared to have stayed well away from the border fence and did not engage in violence.
Hamas, the Islamic militant group that dominates Gaza and is known for its armed resistance, has joined the call for a different form of popular struggle, referred to as the Great March of Return, or the March of the Million.
The idea was to protest Israel’s more than decade-long blockade of Gaza, which restricts the movement of people and goods in and out of the coastal territory, and which Israel calls a security imperative, as well as to highlight Palestinian demands for a right of return to the lands that became Israel 70 years ago. A majority of Gaza’s two million residents are refugees of the 1948 war that surrounded Israel’s creation, or their descendants.
Girding for violence, Israel had almost doubled its forces along the border, deploying snipers, special units and drones, and warning that it would act to prevent any breach of the border fence or violation of Israel’s sovereignty.
The idea for the border encampments, in about half a dozen locations, was initiated by a Gazan social-media activist, Ahmed Abu Artema, a political independent, and was soon adopted by Hamas, which has been promoting the protest on its social media platforms and urging Palestinians to participate.
“Our will in achieving the actual return to our lands is more powerful than jet fighters and a gun,” Mr. Abu Artema said by phone on Friday as he was on his way to the protest. “This march is rightful and will not be used and exploited for political agendas.”
For Israel, the prospect of unarmed mass protests posed the challenge of trying to maintain deterrence by threatening harsh measures, while also trying to avoid mass civilian casualties. Amos Harel, a military analyst for the liberal newspaper Haaretz, wrote on Friday that the Israeli military “will have to maneuver between two goals likely to be contradictory.”
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, warned in a statement that any shoot-to-kill policy against unarmed demonstrators would be unlawful, unless the soldiers’ lives were threatened.
Before the larger clashes broke out, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reported that a Palestinian man, a farmer, was killed near the border zone early Friday by Israeli artillery fire — one of the five it reported dead later in the day. Describing the incident, the Israeli military said one of its tanks had fired on two Palestinians who approached the border and were “acting suspiciously.”
With Gaza’s economy collapsing, fears of an explosive response have mounted. In recent years, first Egypt and then the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank joined Israel in squeezing Gaza financially.
Israel’s hard-line defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, warned Gazans to keep away from the border in a post on Twitter written in Arabic. “The Hamas leadership is risking your lives,” he wrote. “I advise you to get on with your normal everyday lives and not to participate in the provocation.”
Israeli soldiers shot tear gas across the border with Gaza on Friday as Palestinians gathered for demonstrations expected to last six weeks
Muslims at Friday Prayer at one of the tent cities set up for the demonstrations
