Israeli Troops Shoot and Kill Unarmed Protesters, Over 1,000 Injured
Land Day stems from 30 March 1976, when
Israeli forces killed six Palestinian citizens of Israel during a
protest against land confiscations. Palestinians have marked the day for
the past 42 years to denounce Israeli policies to take over Palestinian
land. This year, it comes on the heels of months of anger over US
President Donald Trump’s decision to move the American embassy to
Jerusalem, largely perceived as the United States rejecting Palestinian
claims to East Jerusalem as their capital as part of a two-state
solution.
In the Gaza Strip, where 1.3 million of the
small territory’s two million inhabitants are refugees, protest
organisers have called for six weeks of demonstrations called
the “Great March of Return” along the border of the besieged
Palestinian enclave and Israel, starting on Land Day and culminating on
15 May for Nakba Day, marking the displacement of Palestinians by Israel
in 1948.
With Israeli political discourse veering
further to the right under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
Palestinians have grown increasingly disillusioned regarding the
likelihood of negotiations or an improvement in their living situation
in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israel itself.
The ministry added that more than 1,000 demonstrators had been hurt as of late afternoon. A spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society told MEE they estimated that about 800 protesters in Gaza had been hit by live fire.
Hours before the protests, an Israeli tank shell killed one Gaza farmer and wounded another, the health ministry said.
An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the incident. “Overnight two suspects approached the security fence and began operating suspiciously and the tank fired towards them,” the spokesman said.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an independent and transparent investigation into the deaths and injuries in Gaza on Friday, his spokesman said in a statement.
“He also appeals to those concerned to refrain from any act that could lead to further casualties and in particular any measures that could place civilians in harm’s way,” UN spokesman Farhan Haq said.
‘Brutal Violation’
The Gaza Ministry of Health confirmed at
least 16 Palestinian demonstrators had been killed by Israeli forces on
the border with Israel, and identified some of the slain Palestinians
as: Mohammad Kamel Najjar, 29, who was killed near Jabalia in northern
Gaza; Mahmoud Abu Muammar, 38, near Rafah in the south; Mohammad Abu
Amro, a well-known artist in the Gaza Strip; 16-year-old Ahmad Odeh,
north of Gaza City; Jihad Farina, 33, east of Gaza City; Mahmoud Rahmi,
33; Ibrahim Abu Shaer 22, near Rafah; Abd al-Fattah Bahjat Abd al-Nabi,
18; Abd al-Qader al-Hawajra, 42, killed in central Gaza; Sari Abu Odeh;
and Hamdan Abu Amsha, near Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.
Human rights NGO Adalah denounced the
Israeli army’s use of live fire as a “brutal violation of the
international legal obligation to distinguish between civilians and
combatants,” and called for an investigation into the killings.
The Israeli army announced in a statement
that it had declared the border area of the Gaza Strip a closed military
zone – meaning all Palestinians getting close to the border fence could
risk getting shot.
“The march has achieved its goals, it has
shaken the pillars of the entity (Israel), and laid the first brick for
the road of return,” Ismail Haniyeh, one of Hamas’ top political
leaders, told MEE, while visiting a protest camp in Gaza.
According to the left-leaning Israeli outlet +972 Magazine,
an Israeli group called the Coalition of Women for Peace plans to join
the protest on the Israeli side.
“The gap between what we’re hearing from within Gaza about
the events and the incitement that we’re hearing in the Israeli media is
massive and leaves no doubt about the violent intentions of the Israeli
authorities. We hope that our fears of a violent military response will
be proven wrong, but regardless we will show up on Saturday to support
the demonstrators, who have the right to demand their rights and their
freedom,” said Tania Rubinstein, a coordinator for group.
“Seven hundred metres away from those
soldiers lies my right and the Palestinian people’s right to return home
after 70 years of displacement. We will not wait another 70,” Alaa
Shahin, a young Palestinian man who was celebrating his wedding at a
protest camp near Jabaliya, told MEE.
“I still keep the original documents for
our land in Nilya, which I inherited from my father,” said Yousef
al-Kahlout, a retired history teacher who attended one of the Gaza
demonstrations on Friday with five of his grandchildren. “Today, I
explain to my grandchildren that they have the right to regain
possession of it if I am not alive to achieve my dream to return.”
While Gaza organisers have insisted that the demonstrations will be peaceful, several incidents of Gazans being detained after entering Israel in recent days – including three Palestinians who were carrying weapons – have seen Israeli forces keen to prove their control of the situation.
The Israeli army confirmed in a
statement that it was using “riot dispersal means” – a term typically
used to refer to tear gas and sound bombs – as well as firing at “main
instigators” of the protest.
The Great March of Return also saw Israeli
forces use drones to drop tear gas on the demonstrators – a technology
that has only been used a few times in Gaza by Israeli forces.
Israel’s military chief said on Wednesday
that more than 100 snipers had been deployed on the Gaza border ahead of
the planned mass demonstration near the frontier. Heavy earth-moving
vehicles have built up dirt mounds on the Israeli side of the border and
barbed wire has been placed as an additional obstacle against any mass
attempt to breach the border into Israeli territory.
Land Day Protests in Israel, West Bank
Meanwhile, Palestinians also demonstrated in Israel and the West Bank on Friday to commemorate Land Day. In the Palestinian-majority town of Arraba in the Galilee region of northern Israel, thousands, including Palestinian MPs from the Israeli Knesset, heads of municipalities, and religious figures, took to the streets.Prior to the march, members of the Knesset’s High Follow-Up Committee for Arab citizens of Israel visited the graves of the six Palestinian citizens of Israel who were killed during the first Land Day March in 1976, in cemeteries in Arraba, Sakhnin, and Deir Hanna.
“Israel is still stealing and confiscating our lands, and the oppression continues against our people inside ’48, in the diaspora, and in Gaza,” Arraba Mayor Ali Asleh said in a speech, using a term to refer to the lands on which Israel declared its state in 1948.
According to Palestinian media, clashes took places in some West Bank towns, including Ramallah-al-Bireh, Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus, Qalqiliya, and a number of villages.
A spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent told MEE that the organisation treated at least 63 demonstrators in the West Bank, most suffering from excessive tear gas inhalation, while at least 10 were wounded by rubber-coated steel bullets.
Nakba Day this year will also mark 70 years since the creation of the state of Israel and the forced displacement of 750,000 Palestinians, whose descendants now number in the millions living as refugees abroad or in the occupied Palestinian territory.
This article was chosen for
republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media
republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The
views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect
Anti-Media editorial policy.
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