Palestinians mass at Gaza border to mark protest anniversary
Tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied at the Israel-Gaza
border on Saturday, facing off against Israeli tanks and troops on the first
anniversary of the ‘Great March of Return’ demonstrations, Reuters reported.
Israeli forces had massed the other side of the fortified
frontier, with tensions already high after a rocket attack from Gaza and
Israeli airstrikes earlier in the week.
Three Palestinians were killed on Saturday, Gaza medical
officials said. Two were 17-year-olds shot dead by Israeli troops while
protesting, they said, adding another person was killed at an overnight protest
hours before the main rally.
But Saturday’s rally was smaller than expected, despite
concerns that the anniversary would see a major escalation.
Loudspeakers at border protest camps played Palestinian
nationalist songs and Hamas, the armed Islamist movement which controls Gaza,
had ordered schools to shut for the day to encourage participation.
The protesters are demanding the end to a security blockade
imposed on Gaza by Israel and Egypt, and want Palestinians to have the right to
return to land from which their families fled or were forced to flee during
Israel’s founding in 1948.
Israel rejects any such return, saying that would eliminate
its Jewish majority.
Hundreds of Palestinian men, some from Hamas, were deployed
in bright orange vests to deter people from going near the fence. There was
also less acrid black smoke swirling around with little sign of tire-burning,
as on previous weekends.
The Israeli military said there had been around 40,000
protesters, some hurling grenades and explosives.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military
spokesman, said the day had “lots of rioters but significantly less violence”,
adding that it showed Hamas was able to stop violence when it wanted to.
But many protesters still managed to get near the border and
throw stones at Israeli soldiers.
YEAR OF PROTEST
Around 200 Gazans have been killed by Israeli troops since
the protests started on March 30 last year, according to Palestinian Health
Ministry figures. An Israeli soldier was also killed by a Palestinian sniper.
“In a year I will finish school. My father is unemployed so
I will be unable to go to university. Who is responsible? Israel,” said
16-year-old protester Mohammed Ali.
“I don’t know how many years will pass before our lives
improve but we should continue (protests) as long as the occupation and the
blockade exist.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the
protest was under close scrutiny at home in the build-up to Israeli elections
on April 9.
The veteran Israeli leader faces a serious challenge from a
centrist party led by a former general and pressure from hawkish allies in his
right-wing coalition to be tough on security.
Netanyahu said the Israeli military’s massive deployment had
ensured violence at the protests remained relatively low.
TENSE BUILDUP
The week before the anniversary saw a flare-up of
cross-border violence after a rocket fired from Gaza wounded seven Israelis
north of Tel Aviv on Monday. In response, Israel launched a wave of air strikes
and ramped up its forces at the border.
Egyptian mediators intervened to avoid further escalation,
and to ease tensions by persuading Israel to lift restrictions on the movement
of goods and people in and out of Gaza.
A long-standing Israeli-Egyptian blockade on Gaza is cited
by humanitarian agencies as a key reason for impoverishment in the narrow
coastal enclave, into which 2 million Palestinians are packed.
Hamas leaders said on Saturday progress had been made in the
Egyptian talks but that they still had a list of demands from Israel.
“In the coming days we hope to conclude the negotiations and
achieve a real breaking of the blockade,” Yehya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza,
told Reuters at one rally.
Israel seized Gaza in a 1967 war and pulled out its troops
in 2005. It says the security blockade is necessary to stop weapons reaching
Hamas, which has fought three wars with Israel and fired thousands of rockets
at it in the past decade.
Israel’s use of lethal force at the protests has drawn
censure from the United Nations and human rights groups. UN investigators last
week said Israeli forces might be guilty of war crimes for using excessive
force.
Israel says its troops have no choice because they are
trying to stop militants breaching the fence and attacking Israeli communities
nearby. Palestinians have also launched incendiary balloons and kites into
Israel.
March 30 also marks “Land Day”, an annual commemoration of
six Arab citizens of Israel who were killed by Israeli security forces during
demonstrations over land confiscations in 1976.