At least 15 Palestinians were martyred and 1,400 others wounded by Israeli security forces confronting one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations along the Israel-Gaza border in recent years, Al-Jazeera reported.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians, pressing for a right of return for refugees to what is now Israel, gathered at five locations along the fenced 65-km (40-mile) frontier where tents were erected for a planned six-week protest, local officials said. The Israeli military estimate was 30,000.
Families brought their children to the encampments just a few hundred metres (yards) from the Israeli security barrier, and football fields were marked in the sand and scout bands played.
But as the day wore on, hundreds of Palestinian youths ignored calls from the organisers and the Israeli military to stay away from the frontier, where Israeli soldiers across the border kept watch from dirt mound embankments.
The military said its troops had used “riot dispersal means and firing towards main instigators.” Some of the demonstrators were “rolling burning tires and hurling stones” at the border fence and at soldiers.
Two Palestinians were killed by tank fire, the Gaza Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said the two were militants who had opened fire at troops across the border.
Palestinian health officials said Israeli forces used mostly gunfire against the protesters, in addition to tear gas and rubber bullets. Witnesses said the military had deployed a drone over at least one location to drop tear gas.
Live fire was used only against people trying to sabotage the border security fence.
Gaza health officials said one of the 12 dead was aged 16 and at least 400 people were wounded by live gunfire, while others were struck by rubber bullets or treated for tear gas inhalation.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared Saturday would be a national day of mourning.
The Palestinian protest was launched on “Land Day,” an annual commemoration of the deaths of six Arab citizens of Israel killed by Israeli security forces during demonstrations over government land confiscations in northern Israel in 1976.
But its main focus was a demand that Palestinian refugees be allowed the right of return to towns and villages which their families fled from, or were driven out of when the state of Israel was created in 1948.
In a statement, the Israeli military accused Hamas of “cynically exploiting women and children, sending them to the security fence and endangering their lives”.
The military said that more than 100 army sharpshooters had been deployed in the area and earth-moving vehicles piled up the dirt mounds to stop any attempt to breach the barrier.
Major General Eyal Zamir, head of Israel’s Southern Command, said his forces had identified “attempts to carry out terror attacks under the camouflage of riots”.
Hamas, which seeks Israel’s destruction, had earlier urged protesters to adhere to the “peaceful nature” of the protest.
The protest, which also coincided with Good Friday and the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover, is scheduled to culminate on May 15, the day Palestinians commemorate what they call the “Nakba,” or “Catastrophe” when the Israeli state was created.
The protest organisers include Hamas and representatives of other Palestinian factions.
