Gaza’s fatal ritual: Endless protests, mounting casualties

Eight months after demonstrations erupted in Gaza, the casualty toll keeps rising, and there is no end in sight. (AP)
Updated 20 November 2018
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Gaza’s fatal ritual: Endless protests, mounting casualties

  • The Gaza Strip has been the front line of confrontations between Palestinians and Israel for generations
  • Eight months after the demonstrations began, there appears to be no end to what has become a predictable routine that has killed dozens

MALAKA, Gaza Strip: Atalla Fayoumi hobbles on crutches across the sunbaked plain near Israel’s perimeter fence in the Gaza Strip, gazing toward plumes of smoke that have begun rising from a clutch of burning tires in the distance.
The 18-year-old Palestinian’s right leg was amputated after Israeli soldiers shot him here in April at one of the mass demonstrations against Israel’s long blockade of Gaza that are held every week. Yet he has kept returning to the protests — just like thousands of other desperate, unemployed men who feel they have nothing left to lose.
Eight months after the demonstrations began, there appears to be no end to what has become a predictable routine that has killed dozens. Over the next few hours, Fayoumi knows the crowds will swell into the thousands. They’ll burn so many tires, the sky will turn black. They’ll attack the fence with stones and firebombs, Israeli gunfire will ring out, and Palestinian ambulance sirens will wail non-stop.
By the time it is over, at least 80 Palestinians will be wounded and three will be dead.
At sunset, Fayoumi and the others will abruptly turn around and walk home, while the Israelis will emerge from their positions and march the other way.
In a week, like clockwork, they will be back, poised for the deadly ritual to start all over again.

The Gaza Strip has been the front line of confrontations between Palestinians and Israel for generations. But the territory has been brought to its knees over the last decade by three punishing wars with Israel and an air, sea and land blockade.
The 11-year blockade, imposed by Israel and Egypt, is aimed at weakening Hamas, the militant group that seized power in Gaza from the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. But its impact is felt by all. Raw sewage flows directly onto once-scenic Mediterranean beaches, tap water is undrinkable, and electricity is available just a few hours a day. Over half the Gaza Strip’s 2 million people are unemployed, and most residents cannot leave what has become, in essence, a mass prison, even for medical reasons.
The blockade and growing anger over the harsh living conditions have put enormous pressure on Hamas, which is trying to redirect it toward Israel with relentless protests, said Mkhaimar Abusada, an associate professor of political science at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University.
“But it’s a very slippery slope,” Abusada said. “Because they’re not going to stop until the siege is lifted — or there is another war.”
That almost happened this month, when an Israeli raid into Gaza left seven Palestinian militants and a senior Israeli military officer dead. The raid prompted Hamas and other armed groups to fire hundreds of rockets and mortar shells into Israel, triggering a devastating wave of Israeli airstrikes in return — the heaviest fighting here since a 2014 war.
Both parties pulled back from the brink with a truce, and Hamas kept last Friday’s protests restrained — though not enough to keep 40 Palestinians from being wounded.
While most Gazans see the protests as the inevitable reaction to Israel’s siege, Israel sees the confrontations as violent attacks spearheaded by a terrorist organization.
Since they began March 30, Israeli troops — using live ammunition against Palestinians mostly armed with rocks — have killed more than 170 people and shot nearly 6,000 others, among them scores of children. Thousands more have been wounded during the protests by tear gas or rubber-coated bullets. On the Israeli side, one soldier has been killed by a sniper and six others wounded.
Every Friday, there are more.

It is 2:30 p.m. in Malaka, one of five protest sites along the border, and several boys are practicing for a fight.
They are flinging large rocks onto a barren field with homemade slingshots. One of them, 17-year-old Ahmed Al-Burdaini, shows off a bucket filled with fragments of steel rebar he says he spent the week collecting from the rubble of homes destroyed in past Israeli airstrikes.
“We want to use it against them,” he says proudly.
Another boy points across the frontier and writes in a reporter’s notebook: “This Is Our Land.” It is a reference to another demand of the protests, that Palestinians be allowed to return to lands lost during the 1948 war that created the Jewish state — a demand Israel rejects outright.
The perimeter fence itself is a few hundred meters (yards) away. Israeli soldiers on the other side peer out from bunkers built atop pyramid-shaped berms along the fence.
The protest site is still largely empty, but people are trickling in. Among them is the amputee, Fayoumi, who says he was throwing rocks near the fence and was shot as he rushed to help a wounded friend. A few days earlier, speaking at a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders, he swore he would keep participating in the protests despite his wounds. But why risk it?
“Because I want to die,” he said.
He would prefer for the blockade to be lifted so he could leave Gaza to get a new, prosthetic leg. But if that doesn’t happen, “what’s the point of living?“
The sun is bearing down intensely when a couple dozen Palestinians roll a few tires toward the fence and set them on fire. The first gunshots ring out at 3:14 p.m., in the standard Israeli response to the start of the protests. An armored Israeli jeep at the edge of the fence fires a volley of tear gas canisters that leave white arcs trailing across the sky as they fall. The protesters are unfazed.
Among the growing crowds is an incongruous sight: five street vendors pushing dilapidated food carts hawking seeds, nuts, and frozen slushies. One is affixed with a cheap wooden speaker blaring traditional Bedouin music. It gives the protest the atmosphere of a country fair.
Vendor Adam Badwan, 17, has a simple explanation for coming: “Business is good here, much better than in town.”
Plainclothes Hamas security agents appear. A local television crew arrives with flak jackets and helmets. A single ambulance pulls up.
After Friday noon prayers, around 4 p.m., Hamas dispatches huge buses to many mosques to bring supporters to the border. But many more come on their own — on foot, in cars, motorcycles, bikes and wheelchairs. Within one hour, at least 13,000 people are gathered along the border.

Dr. Khalil Siam is standing inside a medical triage tent about a kilometer (half a mile) from the border when the ambulance sirens begin to howl just after 5 p.m.
The first one to arrive drops off a 22-year-old man who was shot in the left leg. The second brings an 18-year-old, blood streaming from his bandaged face, who was struck by shrapnel.
When the third comes shortly after, bearing a 31-year-old shot in the chest, there is shouting and panic — and no doubt the most dangerous phase of the protests has begun. The bullet has punctured the man’s lung, and he is lowered gently onto a gurney as eight doctors and nurses gather round.
One of the doctors inserts a clear tube into the man’s chest, and within seconds, blood and liquid is draining into a blue plastic bowl on the floor.
“Keep breathing! Keep breathing!“
“Every Friday we wait for the injuries, and every Friday it’s always the same,” says Siam. “They always come.”
Outside, a convoy of vehicles passes. Young men are standing on them, thrusting fists in the air, their faces hidden with scarves and white Guy Fawkes masks. It is the “Burning Tire Unit” — and soon it will fill a vast section of the frontier with a wall of fire and billowing sheets of smoke.
A few dozen meters (yards) away, five men in checkered, black and white headscarves are performing a traditional folk dance with their arms crossed for a captivated crowd under a massive tent. Behind them, in the distance, the border fence looks like a war zone; the sky is completely black, burning tires are shooting flames into the air, and gunfire is ringing out every few minutes.
But nobody is looking toward the border, and few notice the steady stream of ambulances that are crisscrossing the adjacent road, non-stop. Here, vendors are selling corn on the cob and peanuts, and fathers are balancing children on their shoulders.
In the sky behind the stage, four kites flutter in the wind, several with flaming, incendiary trails; such kites have burned thousands of acres of Israeli farmland and set vehicles alight.
Colorful balloons also float overhead; Israel says they have found them on the other side of the fence, tied to small, homemade bombs.
It is 5:45 p.m. now, and the air is growing cooler. The dancers are soon replaced by a poet, then a play featuring two actors dressed as Israeli guards who shove a Palestinian prisoner to the ground. At one point, the prisoner tells the guard: “Resistance is not terrorism.”
The crowd applauds.

By 6 p.m., at the border, all hell is breaking loose.
Hundreds of hard-core protesters are swarming the 12-foot-high fence. The wall of smoke has allowed some, armed with wire cutters, to clip through the rolls of barbed wire. One man is hanging from the top of the fence, shaking it back and forth with the weight of his body. Another is hanging from the other side, and yet another is trying to melt the fence with a flaming tire.
The noise here is constant, like a waterfall. Men are blowing whistles. Others are screaming at the top of their lungs.
“Allahu akbar!” — God is great!
Most are throwing rocks over the fence, thrusting their fists in the air, taking selfies, making the V sign for Victory. There are women too, wearing black and waving Palestinian flags. There is a man with a speaker on his back, playing Palestinian music to encourage them. Some boys pick up smoking tear gas canisters and smack them back over the fence with tennis rackets.
Every time a gunshot rings out, the crowds duck, like a school of fish darting in unison. Sometimes a man falls, and within seconds he is surrounded by medics in orange uniforms, who bandage him on the spot and rush him on a stretcher to the ambulances waiting in the rear.
Further back stands a vast sea of spectators. One, an older man named Khalil Ayesh, is sitting inside a light blue Subaru with his family, as if he has come to a drive-in movie. He was in the same spot last week, watching intently as an Israeli drone crisscrossed the sky like a black spider, dropping tear gas on the crowds from above.
“I bring them every week,” Ayesh said of the three children in the back seat — his son and daughter, and his daughter’s neighbor, “so they can understand what this struggle is about.”
After the sun sets, the crowds dissipate rapidly as two black drones circle overhead. At 6:52 p.m., a huge blast a kilometer (half a mile) from the frontier sends shards of concrete and debris hurling into the air. Eight minutes later, it happens again. Later, in a statement, the Israeli army will say that aircraft and a tank struck two Hamas watchtowers after one of their soldiers was wounded by a pipe bomb.
It is time to go.
At the medical tent, it is now pitch dark, and the last casualty arrives at 7:24 p.m. It is a man, bleeding from the head, who has been hit by a tear gas canister.
Siam says his team treated 25 people on this Friday, mostly for gunshot wounds. Half were shot in the leg, the others in the chest, stomach, back, pelvis. One doctor had to take leave when his nephew arrived, shot in the head.

Almost every Friday protest in Gaza is followed by at least one funeral on Saturday. This week, there are three.
One, for an 11-year-old boy named Shady Abdel-al, is remarkable because it is quiet. Funeral processions here typically are accompanied by young men doing something they usually avoid at the border: firing Kalashnikov rifles into the sky.
Though the Health Ministry initially reported Abdel-al was shot by Israeli fire, the Israeli army claimed he was accidentally struck by a rock thrown by protesters. Two Gaza rights groups say he died after being hit “with a solid object.”
During his funeral, Gaza’s political complexity is laid bare. His body has been wrapped in a yellow flag with a grenade and automatic rifle on it; it belongs to Fatah, the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a bitter rival to Hamas.
Abdel-al’s mother, Isma, says she told the boy not to go, but he boarded a bus to the border organized by Hamas, whose supporters were teaching him the Qur’an.
As the boy’s body is carried through the neighborhood, it is surrounded by a sea of yellow flags. But when it reaches the mosque, there is another huge group of teenagers waiting with the green flag of Hamas. Hassan Walli, a Fatah official, is with the family as the distraught father stands over his son, kissing him on the forehead.
“We will never break the siege this way,” Walli says, shaking his head. “The only way we can do it is with Palestinian unity.”

It is Sunday in Gaza, and Atalla Fayoumi is sitting on the small bed in his small room, showing off pictures of himself at Friday’s protest.
He is proud that he went. Proud that he stood up for the Palestinian cause. But when asked if having a job would have changed anything, his answer is clear: “I would never have gone.”
After his injury, Fayoumi received a payment of $200 from Hamas. It was spent long ago, he says, on medical bills.
Now he has nothing. No work. No hope. And little else to lose.
Next Friday, he says, he will return to the protests again.


UNRWA chief condemns Israeli ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza

Updated 07 June 2025
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UNRWA chief condemns Israeli ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza

  • Lazzarini said Israeli authorities’ refusal to grant access to foreign media since the beginning of the war in Gaza was unprecedented in modern conflict

AMMAN: The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has sharply criticized Israel for barring international journalists from entering the Gaza Strip, calling the ongoing restriction a “ban on reporting the truth.”

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, said the Israeli authorities’ refusal to grant access to foreign media since the beginning of the war in Gaza was unprecedented in modern conflict.

“This is unlike any other conflict in contemporary history,” Lazzarini wrote in a post on X. “It essentially prevents journalists from reporting the truth from the Gaza Strip.”

He warned that the continued ban on international coverage had grave consequences, describing it as “the perfect recipe for fueling media misinformation, deepening polarization, and obscuring humanity.”

Lazzarini called for an immediate end to the ban on foreign media organizations and urged Israel to facilitate access for international journalists. He also called for support for Palestinian journalists who remain in Gaza and continue to report under extremely difficult and dangerous conditions.

“The world must not be kept in the dark,” he said.

The remarks come amid growing international concern over press freedom in Gaza, where Palestinian reporters have borne the brunt of the conflict with limited external scrutiny due to access restrictions.


UN welcomes new Libya safety and rights committees

Updated 07 June 2025
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UN welcomes new Libya safety and rights committees

  • UNSMIL said the committees were “composed of key parties“
  • The safety committee was tasked with drafting a plan to disarm non-state actors in Tripoli

TRIPOLI: The United Nations mission in Libya on Saturday welcomed the formation of two committees by the Libyan presidential council to address safety and human rights after recent deadly clashes in Tripoli.

UNSMIL said the committees were “composed of key parties,” with one aimed at “strengthening security arrangements to prevent the outbreak of fighting and ensure the protection of civilians.”

The second committee was tasked with “addressing human rights concerns in detention facilities, including widespread arbitrary detention,” it added.

Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east.

The North African country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.

Last month, its capital was rocked by days of deadly fighting between rival armed groups that left at least eight people dead, according to the UN.

The violence was sparked by the killing of Abdelghani Al-Kikli, the leader of the Support and Stability Apparatus (SSA) armed group, by the government-backed 444 Brigade, which later took on another rival faction, Radaa.

It also came after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle armed groups that he later said had “become stronger than the state.”

Earlier this week, the Libyan presidential council announced the creation of the committees in a move that Dbeibah described as necessary “to strengthen the rule of law.”

The safety committee was tasked with drafting a plan to disarm non-state actors in Tripoli and strengthen the control of official security forces, the council said.

And the human rights committee will monitor conditions in detention centers and review cases of people detained without judicial oversight.

This came after UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk raised alarm over “gross human rights violations uncovered at official and unofficial detention facilities” run by the SSA group.

UNSMIL said it was “committed to providing technical support” to the newly formed committees.

“UNSMIL stresses that these committees come at a crucial moment when Libyans are demanding meaningful reform, accountable and democratic state institutions,” it said.


Gaza rescuers say Israel fire kills 36, six of them near US-backed aid center

Updated 07 June 2025
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Gaza rescuers say Israel fire kills 36, six of them near US-backed aid center

  • Deaths latest reported near aid center run by Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in Rafah
  • Gazans have gathered at the roundabout almost daily since late May to collect humanitarian aid

GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed at least 36 Palestinians on Saturday, six of them in a shooting near a US-backed aid distribution center.

The shooting deaths were the latest reported near the aid center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) in the southern district of Rafah and came after it resumed distributions following a brief suspension in the wake of similar deaths earlier this week.

An aid boat with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, was meanwhile nearing Gaza in a bid to highlight the plight of Palestinians in the face of an Israeli blockade that has only been partially eased.

Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that at around 7:00 am (0400 GMT), “six people were killed and several others wounded by the forces of the Israeli occupation near the Al-Alam roundabout.”

Gazans have gathered at the roundabout almost daily since late May to collect humanitarian aid from the GHF aid center about one kilometer (a little over half a mile) away.

AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls compiled by the civil defense agency or the circumstances of the deaths it reports.

The Israeli military told AFP that troops had fired “warning shots” at individuals that it said were “advancing in a way that endangered the troops.”

Samir Abu Hadid, who was there early Saturday, told AFP that thousands of people had gathered near the roundabout.

“As soon as some people tried to advance toward the aid center, the Israeli occupation forces opened fire from armored vehicles stationed near the center, firing into the air and then at civilians,” Abu Hadid said.

The GHF, officially a private effort with opaque funding, began operations in late May as Israel partially eased a more than two-month aid blockade on the territory.

UN agencies and major aid groups have declined to work with it, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals.

Israel has come under increasing international criticism over the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory, where the United Nations warned in May that the entire population was at risk of famine.

The aid boat Madleen, organized by an international activist coalition, was sailing toward Gaza on Saturday, aiming to breach Israel’s naval blockade and deliver aid to the territory, organizers said.

“We are now sailing off the Egyptian coast,” German human rights activist Yasemin Acar told AFP. “We are all good,” she added.

In a statement from London, the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza — a member organization of the flotilla coalition — said the ship had entered Egyptian waters.

The group said it remains in contact with international legal and human rights bodies to ensure the safety of those on board, warning that any interception would constitute “a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”

The Palestinian territory was under Israeli naval blockade even before the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war and the Israeli military has made clear it intends to enforce the blockade.

“For this case as well, we are prepared,” army spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said on Tuesday, when asked about the Freedom Flotilla vessel.

“We have gained experience in recent years, and we will act accordingly.”

A 2010 commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar attempt to breach Israel’s naval blockade, left 10 civilians dead.


Syrian authorities announce closure of notorious desert camp

Updated 07 June 2025
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Syrian authorities announce closure of notorious desert camp

DAMASCUS: A notorious desert refugee camp in Syria has closed after the last remaining families returned to their areas of origin, Syrian authorities said on Saturday.
The Rukban camp in Syria’s desert was established in 2014, at the height of Syria’s civil war, in a de-confliction zone controlled by the US-led coalition fighting the Daesh group, near the borders with Jordan and Iraq.
Desperate people fleeing IS jihadists and former government bombardment sought refuge there, hoping to cross into Jordan.
Former Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government rarely allowed aid to enter the camp and neighboring countries closed their borders to the area, isolating Rukban for years.
After an Islamist-led offensive toppled Assad in December, families started leaving the camp to return home.
The Syrian Emergency Task Force, a US-based organization, said on Friday that the camp was “officially closed and empty, all families and residents have returned to their homes.”
Syrian Information Minister Hamza Al-Mustafa said on X on Saturday that “with the dismantlement of the Rukban camp and the return of the displaced, a tragic and sorrowful chapter of displacement stories created by the bygone regime’s war machine comes to a close.”
“Rukban was not just a camp, it was the triangle of death that bore witness to the cruelty of siege and starvation, where the regime left people to face their painful fate in the barren desert,” he added.
At its peak, the camp housed more than 100,000 people. The numbers dwindled with time, especially after Jordan sealed off its side of the border and stopped regular aid deliveries in 2016.
Around 8,000 people still lived there before Assad’s fall, residing in mud-brick houses, with food and basic supplies smuggled in at high prices.
Syrian minister for emergency situations and disasters Raed Al-Saleh said on X said the camp’s closure represents “the end of one of the harshest humanitarian tragedies faced by our displaced people.”
“We hope this step marks the beginning of a path that ends the suffering of the remaining camps and returns their residents to their homes with dignity and safety,” he added.
According to the International Organization for Migration, 1.87 million Syrians have returned to their places of origin since Assad’s fall, after they were displaced within the country or abroad.
The IOM says the “lack of economic opportunities and essential services pose the greatest challenge” for those returning home.
X


Activist aid ship nears Gaza after reaching Egypt coast: organizers

Updated 07 June 2025
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Activist aid ship nears Gaza after reaching Egypt coast: organizers

  • The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left Sicily last week with a cargo of relief supplies ‘to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza’

CAIRO: An aid ship with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, has reached the Egyptian coast and is nearing the besieged Palestinian territory, organizers said on Saturday.
The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left Sicily last week with a cargo of relief supplies “to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza.”
“We are now sailing off the Egyptian coast,” German human rights activist Yasemin Acar told AFP. “We are all good,” she added.
In a statement from London on Saturday, the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza — a member organization of the flotilla coalition — said the ship had entered Egyptian waters.
The group said it remains in contact with international legal and human rights bodies to ensure the safety of those on board, warning that any interception would constitute “a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”
European parliament member Rima Hassan, who is on board the vessel, urged governments to “guarantee safe passage for the Freedom Flotilla.”
The Palestinian territory was under Israeli naval blockade even before the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war and Israel has enforced its blockade with military action in the past.
A 2010 commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar aid flotilla trying to breach the blockade, left 10 civilians dead.
In May, another Freedom Flotilla ship, the Conscience, reported coming under drone attack while en route for Gaza, prompting Cyprus and Malta to send rescue vessels in response to its distress call. There were no reports of any casualties.
Earlier in its voyage, the Madleen changed course near the Greek island of Crete after receiving a distress signal from a sinking migrant boat.
Activists rescued four Sudanese migrants who had jumped into the sea to avoid being returned to Libya. The four were later transferred to an EU Frontex vessel.
Launched in 2010, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition is a coalition of groups opposed to the blockade on humanitarian aid for Gaza that Israel imposed on March 2 and has only partially eased since.
Israel has faced mounting international condemnation over the resulting humanitarian crisis in the territory, where the United Nations has warned the entire population of more than two million is at risk of famine.