Alwaght- Israeli regime forces fired live rounds and tear gas at Palestinian protesters who gathered near Gaza’s border fence with occupied Palestinian’s territories, injuring at least 37 people, including three journalists, WAFA news agency reported on Friday.
Palestinian protesters have gathered along the border for the sixth successive week, the penultimate week of the Great March of Return with the protest due to reach its crescendo on May 15 to coincide with Nakba day (Day of the Catastrophe) the 70th anniversary of the creation of Israeli regime.
Journalist Abdul-Rahman al-Khatib intensely suffocated from teargas inhalation, and journalist Sulaiman Abu Zarifa was hit and injured by a teargas canister in his foot, while journalist Hamza Shami was hit by a canister in his shoulder, according to press sources, the Palestinian news agency reported.
According to the Health Ministry, since the protests began on March 30, Tel Aviv regime’s forces have killed 45 protestors, including two journalists Yasser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hussein, who were both shot despite wearing protective jackets marked with the word “PRESS”. The ministry also announce almost 6,800 have been injured during regime’s brutal crackdown on Gazans.
The 46-day Great March of Return protests started on March 30 and are set to reach their climax on May 15, in which over 750,000 Palestinians - now estimated to number nearly five million with their descendants- were forcibly displaced from their homes to make way for the creation of Israeli regime in 1948. Since then, the occupying Israeli regime has denied Palestinian refugees the right to return, despite UN resolutions and international law that upholds people’s right to return to their homelands.
These year’s Land Day demonstrations come at a time when Palestinian anger is already high over Trump's decision in December 2017 to recognize al-Quds (Jerusalem) as Israeli regime capital.
Gaza Protests Are State of War
On Thursday, Israeli regime’s ministry for war affairs, in response to a high court petition from human rights groups about the regime’s use of live ammunition against protesters, said that human rights law does not apply to the protests because it falls into the category of a state of war and therefore its forces has acted according to Israeli and international law.
The daily Haaretz cited a regime statement as saying that Tel Aviv sees the ongoing "March of Return" protests as “part of hostile acts by Hamas against Israel.”
"The Israeli forces’ rules of engagement comply with both Israeli and international law," Haaretz quoted the statement as saying.
Israel’s Knesset on Monday passed a controversial law that allows the prime minister to bypass parliament and declare war or order a major operation on his own after only consulting his minister for military affairs.
