Topic: Palestinians mass in thousands for protest at Gaza-Israel border

[Mutton Geoff]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43593594

Palestinians in Gaza have marched in their thousands to the Israel border at the start of a six-week-long protest.

Palestinian officials say dozens have been wounded by Israeli gunfire, after earlier reporting the death of a farmer due to tank fire.

The Israeli military reported "rioting" at six places and said it was "firing towards main instigators".

Palestinians have pitched five camps near the border for the protest, dubbed the Great March of Return.
What is the latest at the border?
Palestinian media are reporting about 7,000 people are protesting along the border.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said more than 50 people had been wounded by live fire from the Israeli side. Tear gas has also been fired.

Media in Gaza are reporting the death of a second Palestinian at a protest near Jabaliya but this has not been confirmed.

Before the protest started, Palestinian officials said Israeli tank fire had killed 27-year-old farmer Omar Samour and injured a second man near Khan Yunis in the south.

Witnesses say the two men were collecting parsley in a field, BBC Gaza producer Rushdi Abualouf reports.

Relatives of the dead Palestinian grieve at a hospital in southern Gaza
Hamas, the militant group that dominates the Gaza Strip, has accused Israel of trying to intimidate Palestinians by killing the farmer and by urging them not to participate in the protests.

Addressing protesters, Hamas senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh said "we will not concede a single inch of the land of Palestine".

The Jerusalem Post also reported a rare public appearance by the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yehiya Sinwar.

What have the Israelis said?
The Israeli military oversees a no-go zone along the Gaza border, citing security concerns, and has doubled its troop presence for the protest.

It fears the protest could be an attempt at a mass breach of the border.

The military said that a tank had fired at two suspects after suspicious activity near a security fence near Khan Yunis and that it was aware of the reports of the death.

The Israel Defense Forces later said troops were "firing towards the main instigators" to break up rioting.

Skip Twitter post by @IDFSpokesperson

IDF
✔
@IDFSpokesperson
 Update from the Gaza Strip: Thousands of Palestinians are rioting in 6 locations in the Gaza Strip, rolling burning tires and hurling stones at the security fence and at IDF troops, who are responding with riot dispersal means and firing towards main instigators

10:30 AM - Mar 30, 2018
94
96 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Report
End of Twitter post by @IDFSpokesperson
The Israeli foreign ministry has said the protest was a "deliberate attempt to provoke a confrontation with Israel" and that "responsibility for any clashes lies solely with Hamas and other participating Palestinian organisations".

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman took the unusual step of tweeting in Arabic, accusing Hamas of playing with citizens' lives and warning people not to take part.

What is the protest about?
Palestinians have erected five main camp areas along the Israel border for the protest, from Beit Hanoun in the north to Rafah near the Egyptian border.

The Great March of Return protests were starting on Friday, as 30 March marks Land Day, which commemorates the killing of six protesters by Israeli security forces during demonstrations over land confiscation in 1976.

The protest is scheduled to end on 15 May, which Palestinians call Nakba (catastrophe) and which marks the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the conflict surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948.

Palestinians have long demanded their right to return but Israel says they should settle in a future Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank.

So my question is why in god's name are they firing on protesters with Tanks ?

[TepidT2O]

The Israeli government are ghastly..

[classycarra]

So my question is why in god's name are they firing on protesters with Tanks ?

Tanks aren't mentioned in your post or the article you pasted. Where have you got it from? Do you have a separate source to share?

[SP]

The Israeli government are ghastly..

They are, but this is calculated provocation to deliberately elicit this response. It was depressingly predictable that there would be casualties marching people into those areas. Neither set of leaders seem to care much about the common Palestinians who bear the brunt of the whole sorry mess.

Israel seems immune to international condemnation, so engineering more bloodshed seems particularly pointless. A 2 state solution is the only viable long term solution. This seems to inflame the situation rather than move towards a solution.

[gqP6w]

Tanks aren't mentioned in your post or the article you pasted. Where have you got it from? Do you have a separate source to share?

Tanks are mentioned in the BBC article

Sent from my Xperia Tablet Z Wi-Fi using Tapatalk

[jillcwhomever]

They are, but this is calculated provocation to deliberately elicit this response. It was depressingly predictable that there would be casualties marching people into those areas. Neither set of leaders seem to care much about the common Palestinians who bear the brunt of the whole sorry mess.

Israel seems immune to international condemnation, so engineering more bloodshed seems particularly pointless. A 2 state solution is the only viable long term solution. This seems to inflame the situation rather than move towards a solution.

Ain't this the sad truth. 

[TepidT2O]

They are, but this is calculated provocation to deliberately elicit this response. It was depressingly predictable that there would be casualties marching people into those areas. Neither set of leaders seem to care much about the common Palestinians who bear the brunt of the whole sorry mess.

Israel seems immune to international condemnation, so engineering more bloodshed seems particularly pointless. A 2 state solution is the only viable long term solution. This seems to inflame the situation rather than move towards a solution.

Quite.. Hamas are ghastly too....

[classycarra]

Tanks are mentioned in the BBC article

Sent from my Xperia Tablet Z Wi-Fi using Tapatalk

Ta. Didn't spot it scanning the article, then did a ctrl f with tanks instead of tank. My mistake

[Mutton Geoff]

They are, but this is calculated provocation to deliberately elicit this response. It was depressingly predictable that there would be casualties marching people into those areas. Neither set of leaders seem to care much about the common Palestinians who bear the brunt of the whole sorry mess.

Israel seems immune to international condemnation, so engineering more bloodshed seems particularly pointless. A 2 state solution is the only viable long term solution. This seems to inflame the situation rather than move towards a solution.

Well that is something i can agree with you on.

[hide5seek]

Quite.. Hamas are ghastly too....

Hamas are worse. They know they don't stand a chance once Israel starts using it's fire power, but continue year after year in a pointless exercise of having it's citizens murdered.

[classycarra]

Hamas are worse. They know they don't stand a chance once Israel starts using it's fire power, but continue year after year in a pointless exercise of having it's citizens murdered.

And murder Palestinian citizens, including political opponens and more moderate alternatives, themselves to retain power - continuing to feed into the cycle that inevitably leads to violent conflict

[hide5seek]

And murder Palestinian citizens, including political opponens and more moderate alternatives, themselves to retain power - continuing to feed into the cycle that inevitably leads to violent conflict

and this.

[Mutton Geoff]

Hamas are worse. They know they don't stand a chance once Israel starts using it's fire power, but continue year after year in a pointless exercise of having it's citizens murdered.

Did they tell the Israelis to take Tanks to a peaceful protest ? Not water cannons, bloody tanks, as bad as Hamas are  i am amazed that you can seemingly absolve the Israeli government of any culpability in this, they occupied the palestinians land by force and got away with it, on the world stage , so  maybe if the palestinians didnt feel angry about the way they are continually mistreated by the Israeli Govt, and not supported by the great and the good on the world stage , Hamas would not be a force at all.

[Broad Spectrum]

Well that escalated quickly. 16/17 casualties already...

[Wilmo]

Palestinians hold day of mourning after 773 ‘shot with live ammunition’

At least 16 dead. More than 1400 wounded.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/31/palestinians-hold-day-of-mourning-after-773-shot-with-live-ammunition

   Gaza hospitals, running low on blood and overstretched by the huge number of wounded, were reeling after one of the enclave’s bloodiest days outside of open war, in which Israeli soldiers shot 773 people with live ammunition, according to the ministry of health.

Fifteen of the wounded died, said the ministry spokesperson Dr Ashraf al-Qidra. “Most of the dead were aged between 17 and 35 years old,” he said. “The injuries were on the upper part of the body.” He added that the remainder of the wounded, some of whom were in a critical condition, had been “shot with live ammunition”.

The violence erupted on Friday after mass demonstrations took place demanding the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants to land in Israel.

Tens of thousands of people, including women and children, had planned to camp several hundred metres from the Israeli frontier, which surrounds the 140-square-mile Gaza strip on two sides, on the first day of a peaceful, six-week protest.

But from the main camps, groups of mostly young men approached the border at several locations and started throwing stones and burning tyres. Soldiers responded by opening fire throughout the day.

More than 1,400 people were wounded, mostly by bullets but also rubber-coated rounds and tear-gas inhalation, the health ministry said. The Guardian was unable to independently verify the ministry’s figures.

On Friday, in less than 30 minutes, reporters saw 10 people with bullet wounds carried away on stretchers at one of the demonstrations.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, declared Saturday a national day of mourning. More demonstrations are planned.

Israel said it has positioned snipers and responded to “rioting” Palestinians with “dispersal means” and “firing towards main instigators”. It said the movement was a Hamas-orchestrated ploy and it was identifying “terror attacks under the camouflage of riots”.

The military pointed to what it said was an “attempted shooting attack by a terror cell” in the northern part of the Gaza strip on Friday. It added that it had responded with gunfire and by targeting three nearby Hamas sites with tanks and fighter jets. The military sent a video to journalists showing men appearing to tamper with the separation fence and said that Hamas had earlier sent a seven-year-old girl across the border, whom Israeli soldiers returned to her parents.

The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said: “The international community must not be deceived” by what he called “a well-organised and violent terror gathering”.

Hamas, which backed the protest, has fought three wars with Israel since 2008. In the past few weeks, Israeli forces say they have caught people attempting to cut through the frontier to launch attacks.

The UN security council held emergency talks to discuss the risks of further escalation but failed to agree on a statement. “There is fear that the situation might deteriorate in the coming days,” said the assistant UN secretary general for political affairs, Tayé-Brook Zerihoun.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has called for an independent and transparent investigation into the violence, according to his spokesman Farhan Haq.

The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said what happened in Gaza was a “heinous massacre”. He said Palestinians “expect the security council to shoulder its responsibility” and “defuse this volatile situation, which clearly constitutes a threat to international peace and security”.

Friday’s death toll stood at 16 and included a farmer killed by an Israeli tank shell before dawn as he picked parsley near the border, according to the health ministry. An Israeli army spokesman said the man was operating suspiciously.

Al-Qidra said hospitals were running low on several blood types.

[So… Howard Philips]

Shooting someone picking parsley with a tank shell is something some American police forces will aspire to.

Talk about disproportionate. The British Government was rightly condemned for Bloody Sunday.

I hope the Israeli Government receive the same condemnation.

[BarryCrocker]

Shooting someone picking parsley with a tank shell is something some American police forces will aspire to.

Talk about disproportionate. The British Government was rightly condemned for Bloody Sunday.

I hope the Israeli Government receive the same condemnation.

Bloody Sunday was the worst single event the British Government commited in the whole of the Troubles spanning 30-40 years.

This won’t even rate in the top 10 of incidents by the Israeli forces.

[TepidT2O]

Bloody Sunday was the worst single event the British Government commited in the whole of the Troubles spanning 30-40 years.

This won’t even rate in the top 10 of incidents by the Israeli forces.

Depressing...

And it will be followed by numerous suicide bombings killing innocent citizens on the other side of the fence...

Seemingly no solution

[So… Howard Philips]

Bloody Sunday was the worst single event the British Government commited in the whole of the Troubles spanning 30-40 years.

This won’t even rate in the top 10 of incidents by the Israeli forces.

True.

But there are no Palestinian Boston based Congressmen to keep the issue alive.

[bigbonedrawky]

I see the Kettle and Pot of middle-east politics are currently calling each other out over this... The shameless, shaming the shameless.
What a f*cked up World we live in.      

[Mutton Geoff]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/30/israel-shelling-kills-palestinian-farmer-ahead-major-gaza-protests/

So will this do any good ?

UN chief calls for independent investigation after 16 Palestinians killed near Gaza's border with Israel

[SP]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/30/israel-shelling-kills-palestinian-farmer-ahead-major-gaza-protests/

So will this do any good ?

UN chief calls for independent investigation after 16 Palestinians killed near Gaza's border with Israel

It won’t tell us anything we did not know already. The security council won’t get involved. And nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all, the needle returns to the start of the song and we’ll all sing along like before.

[Paul_h]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/30/israel-shelling-kills-palestinian-farmer-ahead-major-gaza-protests/

So will this do any good ?

UN chief calls for independent investigation after 16 Palestinians killed near Gaza's border with Israel

its already been vetoed by the US
https://news.antiwar.com/2018/04/01/us-blocks-un-resolution-seeking-gaza-inquiry/

[Mutton Geoff]

its already been vetoed by the US
https://news.antiwar.com/2018/04/01/us-blocks-un-resolution-seeking-gaza-inquiry/

No surprise with that then?

[Nobby Reserve]

they occupied the palestinians land by force and got away with it, on the world stage , so  maybe if the palestinians didnt feel angry about the way they are continually mistreated by the Israeli Govt, and not supported by the great and the good on the world stage , Hamas would not be a force at all.

In a nutshell 

[Mumm-Ra]

Oh Jared Kushner, we need you now more than ever!

[RedBootsTommySmith]

Its (somewhat) reassuring to note that Jews themselves do, indeed, struggle with the morality of Israeli policy:

http://mondoweiss.net/2018/04/jews-ditch-zionism/

[Mimi]

Opening of US embassy today. 41 protestors killed so far. Will there be an accountability in Israel for the deaths?

[WhereAngelsPlay]

Opening of US embassy today. 41 protestors killed so far. Will there be an accountability in Israel for the deaths?

Will there fuck as like.

They will blame the dead.

[Wilmo]

Opening of US embassy today. 41 protestors killed so far. Will there be an accountability in Israel for the deaths?

No, of course there won't be.

Up to 2000 injured now, 500 with live ammunition. What are the parameters for a country to be considered a rogue state?

[Mimi]

No question israel is an apartheid government at this point. Maybe the rest of the countries should withdraw their ambassadors in protestst. Basically the Israeli government is not concerned about their moral standing with any other country except Trump’s America.

[Yorkykopite]

The decision to put the US embassy in Jerusalem was the decision of a moron. It ranks alongside Ariel Sharon's infamous visit to the Temple Mount, which prompted the second intifada.

[ElMagico]

Or the fact they are trying to climb over a security border which they have been advised not to? Leaflets were dropped to not approach the security fence, they ignored and suffered as a consequence?  If you threaten state security after ignoring warnings, you get what is coming to you.

[ElMagico]

No question israel is an apartheid government at this point. Maybe the rest of the countries should withdraw their ambassadors in protestst. Basically the Israeli government is not concerned about their moral standing with any other country except Trump’s America.

Ah yes, Apartheid, with 20% of Arabs Living in Israel, definitely Apartheid.

[WhereAngelsPlay]

Or the fact they are trying to climb over a security border which they have been advised not to? Leaflets were dropped to not approach the security fence, they ignored and suffered as a consequence?  If you threaten state security after ignoring warnings, you get what is coming to you.

Definitely deserves live fire rounds that does,just like that lad who was running away from the border with an old car tire,he was a clear and present danger to the sniper who shot him in the back.

[Andy82lfc]

Or the fact they are trying to climb over a security border which they have been advised not to? Leaflets were dropped to not approach the security fence, they ignored and suffered as a consequence?  If you threaten state security after ignoring warnings, you get what is coming to you.

They deserve to be killed? K'inel mate, thats pretty horrible. 

[Elmo!]

Ah yes, Apartheid, with 20% of Arabs Living in Israel, definitely Apartheid.

Not quite sure what you are claiming here. Do you mean 20% of all Arabs live in Israel, or that 20% of the population of Israel is Arab?

I assume you mean the latter as the first is blatantly not true, but the latter does not mean Israel is not apartheid. After all, a lot more than 20% of Apartheid South Africa was black.

[ElMagico]

Go and try and run through security with a weapon in an airport or across another border and see what happens?

Chances are you're going to end up in the same position. But don't worry, because it's Israel, they cannot defend their borders, can they?

[ElMagico]

They deserve to be killed? K'inel mate, thats pretty horrible. 

Deserve? No. Complaints? No.

So when one gets over the border, and then starts opening fire, then what? Why didn't they do anything to stop them coming over the border in the first place?

[Wilmo]

Or the fact they are trying to climb over a security border which they have been advised not to? Leaflets were dropped to not approach the security fence, they ignored and suffered as a consequence?  If you threaten state security after ignoring warnings, you get what is coming to you.

This might be the most sinister and morally sickening post I've read on here after many years. Borderline psychopathic, I'd wind your neck in if I were you.