The Gaza Strip is reeling from the bloodiest episode in years after Israeli forces killed more than a dozen people during demonstrations near the frontier. Gazans had gathered as part of a “Great March of Return” protest demanding refugees and their descendants be allowed to return to their ancestral homes in Israel.



It was the start of a six-week sit-in, and was advertised as a peaceful protest, expected to continue until 15 May when Palestinians commemorate the roughly 700,000 people who either fled or were expelled from their homes in the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948. As Israeli snipers opened fire, it quickly turned into bloody chaos.

On Saturday, as the coffins made their slow sad progress, mourners thronged the narrow thoroughfares, demanding “revenge”.

Q&A What is the history of the Palestinian reconciliation efforts? Show Hide The two main Palestinian parties – the Fatah faction of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and the Islamist militant group Hamas – have run separate governments in the West Bank and Gaza respectively since 2007. The situation emerged after Hamas defeated Fatah in parliamentary elections in 2006. Fatah refused to recognise the result, leading to a near-civil war that saw Hamas push Fatah out of Gaza. Numerous attempts at reconciliation have ensued but the latest effort looks the most serious yet. The issue of who controls the borders and runs government ministries is a key test, not least in loosening the Israeli blockade on Gaza, imposed after Hamas took control.

Responsibility for land border crossings – in a coastal strip without a commercial sea port or airport – is crucial, as Palestinians and goods can only cross by these checkpoints. Both Egypt and Israel will want to ensure that no arms reach Hamas and other groups.

One mourner, Mohammad Sabbagh, 30, sat with his family on plastic chairs in a green funeral tent outside their home in the city of Beit Lahia listlessly receiving condolences from well-wishers. He recalled seeing his brother Bader, 10 years his junior, shot through the head on Friday.

“He said, ‘I am bored, I don’t want this life’. He asked me for a cigarette; I gave him a lit one, he took about two puffs and then a bullet shot him in the head and went out the other side. I carried him to the ambulance, and he was dead,” he said.

Mohammad had arrived early on Friday to attend the demonstrations and later spotted Bader about 300 metres from the perimeter with Israel.

The brothers stood between the group at the front of the protest, who were throwing rocks at Israeli forces, and the demonstrators at the back, where thousands of men, women and children had gathered. “He didn’t do anything; he was standing next to me,” Mohammad said of his brother.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The wife and two daughters of 28-year-old Jihad Abu Jamous, shot dead on Friday during clashes with Israeli troops at the Gazan border, mourn during his funeral in Khan Yunis. Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA

As well as those killed, more than 1,400 people were wounded, mostly by bullets but also by rubber-coated rounds and tear-gas inhalation, according to the Gazan health ministry, although it has not been possible to independently verify the ministry’s figures.



Brig Gen Ronen Manelis, the Israeli army’s chief spokesman, denied allegations that excessive force was used and claimed that Gaza health officials had exaggerated the number of wounded.

Friday was also symbolic as it was Land Day, when Palestinians remember the killing of six unarmed Arab protesters in Israel in 1976. But, within hours, the death toll for the commemorative protest had outstripped that for the event it was honouring.



“I went there myself with my grandchildren, I didn’t know it was going to be violent,” said Bader’s 62-year-old father, Faiyeq. “I wanted to show the kids our lands that were taken from us and sit there peacefully, but it became violent,” he added.

“There is no future for the youth, it was destroyed, they wanted just a better life. Unfortunately there is no better life but for dead people.”

Following the horror of mass casualties the day before, protests at the frontier were more subdued, with only a few clashes. People marched through the streets of Gaza City at funerals for those killed. Mourners held Palestinian flags, and some chanted “revenge”.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, declared that Saturday would be a national day of mourning and a general strike was called across the entire Palestinian territories.

At one of Friday’s protests, Israeli soldiers had lain atop a towering sandbank that overlooked Gaza. A few metres ahead, a metal fence demarcating the border stood firm. And in front of that, hundreds of young Palestinian men began to throw rocks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said: ‘The large number of martyrs and people wounded shows that the international community must intervene.’ Photograph: Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images

Israel claims its troops opened fire only when it was necessary and in the face of attempts to damage the fence and infiltrate its territory. After a number of recent efforts to break across, the Israeli army has increased its presence in the area. It had already had about 100 snipers deployed before the protest.

“Nothing was carried out uncontrolled; everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed,” Israel’s military said in a tweet on Saturday. However, when asked to clarify, it would not provide a specific number of people it believed its forces had struck, and the tweet was later deleted.

Hamas, the Islamist militant movement that rules Gaza, was using “violent riots to camouflage terror”, Israel said. It pointed to incidents on Friday including what it said was an unsuccessful “attempted shooting attack by a terror cell”. Its forces responded with fire from tanks and fighter jets.

In a statement released on Saturday, Hamas acknowledged five of the fatalities the day before were members of its armed wing who were participating “in popular events side-by-side with their people”.

Lt Col Peter Lerner of the Israeli Defence Forces said live ammunition was used “because this is a hostile border”.

“This isn’t anywhere in Europe. This a border where there have been explosive devices detonated, shots fired, rockets fired, [rocket-propelled grenades] fired, tunnels dug under for ill-intentions,” he said. “So we treat that as a hostile border, anybody approaching is a potential threat.

“People coming towards the fence, attempting to penetrate and break into the fence, damaging the infrastructure or using that area as a staging ground, could potentially be shot.”

Another Israeli military spokesman said Friday’s events were “not a protest demonstration” but “organised terrorist activity”.

Brig Manelis warned: “If it continues, we shall have no choice but to respond inside the Gaza Strip against terrorist targets, which we understand to be behind these events.”

Friday’s events constituted the most violent day in the blockaded enclave since the 2014 war between Hamas and Israel. Trump’s move to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and move the US embassy there in mid-May, has further infuriated people in Gaza who already live under blockade by both Egypt and Israel.

Q&A What will US recognition of Jerusalem mean for the peace process? Show Hide The peace process has been at death’s door since the former secretary of state John Kerry’s peace mission ended in failure in 2014. But the international community – apart from the US – is united in saying recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is disastrous for any hopes of reviving meaningful talks. The status of Jerusalem is one of the pivotal issues that diplomats and peacemakers have said must be agreed between the two parties in negotiations. Palestinians will see Trump’s announcement as the end of their hopes and demands for East Jerusalem as a capital of a future independent state. While few want a return to violence, many will feel diplomatic efforts have got them no closer to a state of their own. The Israeli government will be thrilled. Ever since it captured (and later annexed) East Jerusalem in the 1967 six-day war, Israel has claimed the city as its “eternal and undivided” capital, and has longed for international recognition. Some 200,000 Israelis living in illegal settlements will also celebrate.

Abbas said he held Israel entirely responsible for the deaths. “The large number of martyrs and people wounded in peaceful popular demonstrations shows that the international community must intervene to provide protection to our Palestinian people,” he said.

The UN has warned that hospitals in Gaza, already overstrained by the longstanding shortages of medical supplies, electricity and fuel, are struggling to cope with the overwhelming number of casualties.

Shortages of emergency and anaesthesia drugs and disposables have been reported and the Israeli-controlled Gaza crossings were closed until Sunday, except for urgent humanitarian cases, the UN said.

Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City said it had received 284 injured people on Friday, the majority with bullet injuries. A spokesman, Dr Ayman al-Sahbani, said 70 of the wounded were under the age of 18 and 11 were women. “These are all from live bullets that broke limbs or caused deep, open wounds with damage to nerves and veins,” he said.

Simon Tisdall | Will clashes over Gaza cause a wider Middle Eastern conflict? Read more

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, called for an independent investigation while human rights groups condemned Israel’s use of live fire. “Israeli allegations of violence by some protesters do not change the fact that using lethal force is banned by international law except to meet an imminent threat to life,” New York-based Human Rights Watch said, calling the number of killed and wounded “shocking.”

The EU diplomatic chief, Federica Mogherini, also called on Saturday for an investigation, saying “the use of live ammunition should, in particular, be part of an independent and transparent investigation”.

An Israeli NGO, B’Tselem, warned ahead of the protests that Israel was ignoring the humanitarian situation in Gaza and its responsibility for it, couching the protest “in terms of a security risk”.

“Israel’s presumption that it can dictate the actions of Palestinians inside the Gaza Strip is absurd. The decision where and whether and how to demonstrate in Gaza is not Israel’s to make,” it said. “Israel has the power to immediately change life in Gaza for the better, but has chosen not to do so. It has made Gaza a huge prison, yet forbids the prisoners even to protest against this, on pain of death.”