Israeli forces fired two tank shells and several rounds from machine guns as Gazans approached the heavily fortified border with Israel on Sunday, wounding at least 15 youths, a Palestinian health official said. One of the wounded was in a critical condition.
The march near the Gaza-Israel border was part of Palestinian commemorations of their uprooting three generations ago, during the war over Israel’s establishment.
Across the West Bank and Gaza, thousands took to the streets, waving flags and holding old keys to symbolise their dreams of reclaiming property they lost when Israel was created on 15 May 1948.
In Gaza, dozens of marchers approached the border with Israel, and Israeli troops opened fire. The tank shells fell in an empty field several hundred metres from the group.
Haaretz thinks a new intifada is possible in the coming months, due to the complete lack of progress on Palestinian self-determination.
And the news just gets worse:
Violence erupted on Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday, leaving at least eight dead and dozens wounded, as Palestinians marked what they term “the catastrophe” of Israel’s founding in 1948.
Israeli troops shot at protesters in three separate locations to prevent crowds from crossing Israeli frontier lines in the deadliest such confrontation in years.
Israeli and Syrian media reports said Israeli gunfire killed four people after dozens of Palestinian refugees infiltrated the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria, along a disputed border that has been quiet for decades.
Witnesses on the nearby Lebanese frontier said four Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces fired at rock-throwing protesters to prevent them from crossing the border.
The Lebanese army had also earlier fired in the air in an attempt to hold back the crowds.
On Israel’s tense southern border with the Gaza Strip, Israeli gunfire wounded 60 Palestinians as demonstrators approached Israel’s fence with the Hamas Islamist-run enclave, medical workers said.
In Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial hub, a truck driven by an Arab Israeli slammed into vehicles and pedestrians, killing one man and injuring 17 people.