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.


Missile launched from Yemen into Israel intercepted, Israeli army says

Updated 14 sec ago
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Missile launched from Yemen into Israel intercepted, Israeli army says

CAIRO: The Israeli army said in the early hours of Saturday that a missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory.
Sirens sounded in a number of areas in Israel following the launch, the Israeli army added in a statement.
There was no immediate comment from Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, who have been launching attacks against Israel as well as ships they perceive as affiliated to Israel, in what they say is to support the Palestinians in Gaza against the Israeli offensive on the enclave.


Former Lebanese PM Diab questioned over Beirut port blast

Updated 25 April 2025
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Former Lebanese PM Diab questioned over Beirut port blast

  • Investigation gains momentum as French official files transferred to Judge Tarek Bitar
  • Lebanese President Aoun reiterates importance of judiciary in securing broader reform

BEIRUT: Former Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab appeared before Judge Tarek Bitar on Friday for questioning related to the devastating Beirut port explosion of Aug. 4, 2020. 

Diab was interrogated for two and a half hours before being remanded for further questions. The session came a week after Bitar questioned former Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk.

In recent weeks, former General Security Chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim and former Head of State Security Maj. Gen. Tony Saliba also appeared before the judge.

The explosion devastated the capital’s waterfront, resulted in thousands of casualties, and has been compared in scale to a nuclear bomb.

It prompted widespread outrage both at home and abroad due to the long-term neglect in safely storing large quantities of ammonium nitrate at the port.

Diab, who was prime minister at the time of the explosion, had previously failed to attend hearings into the disaster for various reasons, notably claiming that “the investigative judge lacked jurisdiction to question” him, or stating that he was abroad.

For more than 18 months, several individuals contested their summons, arguing that Bitar was not the appropriate authority to investigate them.

They also initiated lawsuits against Bitar, whose work was suspended for a significant period due to political pressures and legal challenges.

During their unexpected appearances before the investigative judge, these individuals all expressed their intention to cooperate.

In Lebanon, political and judicial powers are intertwined, contrary to the constitution’s separation of powers principle.

The judiciary is mostly subject to political pressure, starting with judicial appointments, as with other institutions and administrations, which hinders reform efforts and the full independence of the judiciary.

A ministerial source told Arab News that President Joseph Aoun had always stressed two key pillars essential for the state’s recovery are security and the judiciary.

“The security appointments have been finalized, and measures are in place to restore security.

“The minister of justice and the High Judicial Council are actively working on judicial appointments to restore processes free from political interference and corruption.

“These procedures have started to affect the justice system, and everyone has begun to understand that the authority of the judiciary is not negotiable; the previously accepted method is no longer valid.”

The source emphasized that gaining political support for the judiciary is essential to shield it from interference.

This should be prioritized, particularly in light of the president’s commitment to maintaining judicial independence.

Additionally, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is dedicated to implementing the ministerial statement that received unanimous support through the vote of confidence in his government, said the source.

Political authorities are still debating the law on judicial independence, but it remains unapproved and is currently stalled in joint parliamentary committees.

Aoun has previously stressed his belief in the judiciary as a cornerstone of reform.

In a recent meeting with the Bar Association, he noted that the challenge is not the coubtry’s laws themselves, but their implementation and accountability for violations.

“Too often, laws are interpreted for personal gain and interests. By working together, individuals committed to justice and accountability can address imbalances, fight corruption, and promote responsibility,” he said.

“Only the judiciary has the authority to deter offenders and corruption,” the president added.

Currently, the High Judicial Council is investigating bribery cases involving several judges and has issued a preliminary arrest warrant for one of them, who was arrested and transferred to the prison run by the General Directorate of Internal Security Forces.

The council recently set up three bodies to investigate cases against judges.

Lawyer Ghida Frangieh — who represents victims of the Beirut port explosion — told Arab News that the “renewed cooperation between the Public Prosecution and investigative Judge Bitar is a crucial development.

“It will help revive the port explosion case and allow the investigation to continue until an indictment is issued and, ultimately, a trial takes place,” Frangieh said.

“The election of the republic’s president, setting up a functional government instead of a caretaker government, and the political will for reform would collectively help reactivate Lebanon’s judicial system.

“This should have been the scenario in the port investigations three years ago, and all pending judicial cases should now be addressed and resolved in due order,” Frangieh added.

A French delegation is set to arrive in Beirut next Monday, following the transfer of judicial summons from the Public Prosecution at the Court of Cassation in Lebanon to France.

Bitar has requested access to French investigations regarding the port explosion, and the French judiciary has expressed willingness to support the judge by providing all necessary files and documents for his investigation.

Several French nationals were among those killed and injured in the Beirut port explosion.


US says blast near UNESCO world heritage site caused by Houthi missile

A picture shows a view of UNESCO-listed buildings in the old city of the Yemeni capital Sanaa on July 12, 2023. (AFP file photo)
Updated 26 April 2025
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US says blast near UNESCO world heritage site caused by Houthi missile

  • A Houthi official was quoted by the New York Times as saying the American denial was an attempt to smear the Houthis

WASHINGTON: The US military said a blast on Sunday near a UNESCO world heritage site in Yemen’s capital city of Sanaa was caused by a Houthi missile and not an American airstrike.
The Houthi-run Health Ministry said a dozen people were killed in the US strike in a neighborhood of Sanaa. The Old City of Sanaa is a recognized UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The US ordered the intensification of strikes on Yemen last month, with officials saying they will continue assaulting Houthis until they stop attacking Red Sea shipping.
A US Central Command spokesperson said the damage and casualties described by Houthi officials “likely did occur,” but a US attack did not cause them.
The spokesperson said the closest US strike was more than 5 km away that night.
The US military assessed that the damage was caused by a “Houthi air defense missile” based on a review of “local reporting, including videos documenting Arabic writing on the missile’s fragments at the market,” the spokesperson said, adding the Houthis subsequently arrested Yemenis.
A Houthi official was quoted by the New York Times as saying the American denial was an attempt to smear the Houthis.
Recent US strikes have killed dozens, including 74 at an oil terminal on Thursday in what was the deadliest strike in Yemen under Trump so far, according to the local Health Ministry.
The US military says the strikes aim to cut off the Houthi militant group’s military and economic capabilities.
Rights advocates have raised concerns about civilian killings, and three Democratic senators, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen, wrote to Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth on Thursday, demanding an accounting for the loss of civilian lives.
The Houthis have taken control of swaths of Yemen over the past decade.
Since November 2023, they have launched drone and missile attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, saying they were targeting ships linked to Israel.

 


Flow of Sudan war refugees puts Chad camp under strain

Sudanese refugees fill jerry cans with water at the Touloum refugee camp in the Wadi Fira province, Chad, on April 8, 2025. (AFP
Updated 25 April 2025
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Flow of Sudan war refugees puts Chad camp under strain

  • Chad has taken in more than 770,000 of them, according to the UN refugee agency — with many more likely on their way

IRIBA, Chad: Nadjala Mourraou held her haggard two-year-old son in her henna-tattooed hands for the medics to examine. Then came the painful diagnosis: little Ahma, like many of his fellow Sudanese refugees, was severely malnourished.
The pair were toward the front of a long line snaking out of the doctors’ tent at an already overcrowded refugee camp in east Chad, creaking under the strain as more and more people fleeing the civil war across the nearby border with Sudan turn up.
“We’re suffering from a lack of food,” complained the mother, who fled the fighting in Nyala, in Sudan’s South Darfur region, with Ahma more than a year ago.
Since their arrival at the Touloum camp, Mourraou added that all she and Ahma had to eat each day was a bowl of assida, a porridge made from sorghum.
Yet, as with other conditions at the camp, this meagre ration could deteriorate further as the war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces drags on.
Besides killing tens of thousands, the two-year conflict has uprooted 13 million people, more than three million of whom have fled the country as refugees.
Chad has taken in more than 770,000 of them, according to the UN refugee agency — with many more likely on their way.
Between 25,000 and 30,000 Sudanese refugees already live in the makeshift sheet metal and white canvas tents, packed together across the arid Touloum camp, according to sources.
Recently, more and more of them have become malnourished, said Dessamba Adam Ngarhoudal, a nurse with medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF.
“Out of 100 to 150 daily consultations, nearly half of them deal with cases of malnutrition,” said the 25-year-old medic.
The worst cases are sent to the Iriba district hospital, around half an hour’s drive away.
But the hospital was powerless to stop the first Sudanese infant dying of malnutrition under its care.
“Since the beginning of the month, we have already exceeded the capacity of the malnutrition ward at the hospital,” said MSF nurse Hassan Patayamou recently.
“And we expect admissions to continue to rise as the hot season progresses and temperatures rise above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).”
With the fighting set to grind on, Chad’s government fears the number of Sudanese refugees in the country could soon reach nearly a million.
That burden would be too heavy for impoverished Chad to bear alone, argues the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
The refugee agency was seeking $409 million in aid to help the Sahel country — only 14 percent of which it had received by the end of February.
“The Chadian people have a tradition of welcoming their Sudanese brothers in distress,” said Djimbaye Kam-Ndoh, governor of Wadi Fira province where the Touloum camp is located.
“But the province’s population has practically doubled, and we’re asking for major support.”
Humanitarian groups are worried about the impact of US President Donald Trump’s move to freeze America’s foreign aid budget, while other donors, notably in Europe, have also made cuts to their financing.
“Hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake,” Alexandre Le Cuziat, the UN’s World Food Programme deputy director in Chad, said in a phone call.
Nearly 25 million people are suffering from acute food insecurity in Sudan itself, according to the WFP.
And with the rainy season just under two months away, medics fear outbreaks of diseases.
“We’re preparing for an explosion of cases of malnutrition and malaria,” said Samuel Sileshi, emergencies services coordinator for MSF in Central Darfur state.
“This year, we are also facing measles epidemics in Darfur,” he said.
That unhealthy cocktail of diseases, he warned, “could have devastating consequences,” not least for children.

 


WFP says has depleted all its food stocks in Gaza

Updated 25 April 2025
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WFP says has depleted all its food stocks in Gaza

  • Entry of all humanitarian aid has been blocked by Israel since March 2

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The UN’s World Food Programme on Friday warned it has depleted all its food stocks in war-ravaged Gaza, where the entry of all humanitarian aid has been blocked by Israel since March 2.
“Today, WFP delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens in the Gaza Strip. These kitchens are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days,” WFP said in a statement.