Israeli forces killed 18 Palestinians and injured over 700 during a mass demonstration at the border.
A protest along the tense border between Israel and Gaza turned violent Friday, leaving 18 Palestinians dead and more than 700 wounded. Now Israelis and Palestinians are sparring over what caused the bloodshed in the first place — and preparing for the possibility of new violence that could kill even more.
Israeli soldiers shot and killed the Palestinians at a massive protest largely organized by Hamas, the Islamist extremist group that controls Gaza. The rally was meant to kick off weeks of sit-ins and demonstrations calling for the “right of return” for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their descendants who were displaced from their homes, or fled, during the creation of the state of Israel.
The 30,000 Palestinians who took part in the protests also condemned the crippling land, sea, and air blockade that Israel and Egypt have imposed on Gaza since 2007, when Hamas took power and kicked out the US-backed Palestinian Authority government.
The blockade, along with Hamas’s mismanagement, has turned Gaza into an open-air prison: Residents have access to only four hours of electricity per day, only 10 percent have access to clean drinking water, and the unemployment rate is a whopping 46 percent.
The vast majority of protesters demonstrated peacefully in a tent city set up hundreds of meters from the heavily fortified border, but smaller groups of predominantly young Palestinians reportedly rolled burning tires and threw stones and Molotov cocktails at nearby Israeli troops.
Israeli forces — which included 100 military snipers who’d been deployed to the border in advance of the protest — responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, and live ammunition, killing 18 Palestinians and wounding hundreds more. No Israeli soldiers were hurt.
Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, had publicly stated before the demonstration that the military would not allow “mass infiltration” of Israel over the border or tolerate damage to the border fence during the protests. “If lives are in jeopardy, there is permission to open fire,” he added.
But human rights groups say Israeli security forces illegally used deadly force against protesters who didn’t pose an imminent threat.
“This was an incident where soldiers were firing from behind the fence, separated by buffer zones and other objects, firing on individuals well behind the fence, in some cases retreating, not moving forward, or advancing without posing imminent threat,” Omar Shakir of the international group Human Rights Watch told the Washington Post.
The bloodshed — the worst since the two sides fought a full-blown war in 2014 — has triggered calls from the United Nations and the European Union for international investigations into the incident.
The question now is whether it will also spark new violence — and send the death toll even higher.
Israelis and Palestinians have vastly different explanations of why 18 people were shot dead
Beyond the actual violence, there’s now a social media war going on, with each side releasing videos to bolster their explanations of what happened.
The Israeli military has rejected accusations of excessive use of force and said that it was acting “against violent protests and terrorists activities which included live fire towards its soldiers [and] attempts to infiltrate Israel.”
“The forces acted according to open-fire protocols and in a reasonable manner as they avoided harming civilians posted there by Hamas, who wish to embarrass Israel while risking those civilians,” an IDF spokesperson said in a statement. “[A]nyone who partakes in violent protests puts themselves at risk.”
The IDF maintains that each of the protesters killed was engaged in violence and that at least 10 were members of Hamas or other militant groups. It also disputes the high number of injured, saying claims by the Gaza health ministry are exaggerated.
To try to reinforce its version of events, the IDF has also released video footage purporting to show two Palestinian men with assault rifles trying to break through the Israeli border fence on Friday night. Both men were killed by fire from Israeli tanks.
Palestinian media, for its part, aired a video that appears to show Israeli troops shooting an 18-year-old Palestinian in the back as he runs away from the border. Another video posted on social media shows a Palestinian protester being shot in the head as he waves his arms in the air dozens of meters away from the border fence; he is currently in critical condition, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Hamas has identified five of the dead as members of its military wing, but says they were merely taking part “in popular events side-by-side with their people.”
UN Secretary General António Guterres has called for “an independent and transparent investigation” into the incident.
But the violence may not be over. Though protests largely died down over the weekend as mourners held funerals for those killed last week, thousands of Palestinians are expected to return to the border this coming Friday. An IDF spokesperson has already threatened to send troops over the border if the situation escalates.
And on May 15, after six weeks of planned protests, Palestinian organizers say they will hold a mass march toward the border fence. Israeli officials fear that march could turn into an attempt to breach the fence itself — something Hamas leaders themselves have hinted at.
If that happens, it could very well escalate into a more prolonged conflict or even all-out war — which would be the fourth between Israel and Gaza in just a decade.
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Breaking News: The recent violence at the Gaza-Israel border, explained - News Paper
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