Israel has praise for 'exceptionally restrained' Gaza protests after killing 4 Palestinians, three of them teenagers

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Sun, 31 Mar 2019 16:26 UTC

At least four Palestinians were killed and over 300 were injured on Saturday during massive demonstrations marking the one year anniversary of the Great March of Return in Gaza.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement that as of 10:40 pm, Israeli forces had shot and killed four Palestinians and injured 316.

Three of the four slain Palestinians were identified by the ministry as 20-year-old Mohammed Jehad Sa'ad, who was killed on Saturday morning before the protests kicked off, and 17-year-olds Adham Nedal Amara and Tamer Hashim Abu al-Khair, who were both killed during demonstrations.

Local Palestinian news agency Quds News Network identified the fourth Palestinian as another 17-year-old, Belal Mahmoud Najjar.

Tamer Abu al-Khair killed gaza march return

In a post on Facebook, Quds News posted photos of Abu al-Khair, saying:

Friends of Tamer's assured that he had been desperately looking for a job. Unemployment is one serious issue resulted by the Israeli siege on Gaza.

The borders' marches give Tamer and many others the chance to protest and demand a better life.

Israel deprived Tamer of a job, and killed him when he demanded one,

According to the ministry, five people were reported to be in critical condition, and another nine in serious condition, as of 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The ministry added that 64 people were injured with live ammunition, and that among the total injured, 86 were children.

An estimated 40,000 Gazans took to the eastern border with Israel on Saturday, waving Palestinian flags and carrying signs demanding their right to return and an end to the siege.

The protests, as they did when they launched last year, coincided with Land Day, when Palestinian commemorate the 1967 massacre of six Palestinians protesting Israel's expropriation of their land.

In preparation for the demonstrations and expected violence from Israeli snipers across the borders, health workers in Gaza set up a series of large medical tents with dozens of beds, and medics and ambulances on standby.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces had deployed 200 snipers across the border, doubled their number of troops, and extended the height of its existing militarized border fence in preparations for the protest.

Leading up to Saturday's march, reports surfaced saying that Palestinian factions in Gaza had agreed to quell the anniversary protests in return for Israel easing a number of restrictions on Gaza's borders, imports and exports, and fishing zones.

By Saturday evening, as protests wound down, Israeli media reported that due to the "successful efforts" by Hamas to "restrain protests," Israel would be reopening Gaza borders and the enclave's fishing zone, which had been completely closed by the Israeli army following rocket fire from Gaza last week.

Haaretz reported that "if quiet is maintained," Israel would continue to ease other restrictions "at a later time."

According to Haaretz, Israeli army spokesman Ronen Manelis praised the "exceptionally restrained" protests, saying "the restraint Hamas exercised today was such that we hadn't seen over the past year. There were hundreds of Hamas personnel who wore orange vests and prevented demonstrators from reaching the [border] fence."

Manelis' statement made no mention of the four Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, or of the dozens of protesters shot with live ammunition.

In the predawn hours of Sunday morning, Israeli forces conducted several airstrikes across the Gaza Strip after rockets from Gaza landed in open areas in southern Israel, injuring no one.

Despite the flare up, Israeli media reported, the government would move forward with its promises to ease border and fishing restrictions.

Yumna Patel is a multimedia journalist based in Bethlehem, Palestine. Follow her on Twitter at @yumna_patel

Comment: Sputnik reports death toll for the day has risen to five:

© Associated Press/Adel HanaAn elderly Palestinian man falls on the ground after being shot by Israeli troops during a deadly protest at the Gaza Strip's border with Israel, east of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, 14 May, 2018
Five Palestinian protesters were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers on the Gaza Strip border on March 30, which marked a year since the start of mass protests dubbed the Great March of Return, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry Ashraf Qidra told Sputnik on Sunday.

"Since yesterday, a total of five people died, including four teenagers," Qidra said, adding that the latest victim was only 13 years old.

The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Internal Affairs said it had sent 8,000 employees to prevent clashes between the protesters and Israeli troops.

Despite the fact that about 40,000 people gathered near the border on Saturday, which is a significant increase in the number of activists compared to previous protests, the scale of clashes and casualties were relatively small, including due to the fact that Hamas movement ruling in the enclave joined the de-escalation efforts.

The Israeli military noted that the overwhelming majority of the protesters rallied in the camps, located at a safe distance from the border fence, adding that only a small number of protesters clashed with the IDF throwing stones, Molotov cocktails and explosive devices at the soldiers.

Reader Comments

sbc · 2019-03-31T17:16:31Z

the protests were so restrained they only had to kill four kids.....

Rowan Cocoan · 2019-03-31T22:12:52Z

I was pleasantly shocked to see that the link's headline was identical to the absurd one presented above. The critical paragraphs:

The excuse for the murders and attempted murders?: In the predawn hours of Sunday morning, Israeli forces conducted several airstrikes across the Gaza Strip after rockets* from Gaza landed in open areas in southern Israel, injuring no one.

The headline is so painfully Orwellian, it's hard to find the appropriate key in which to write good dark humor about it, but the first commenter at the source article does a damn fine job. Name is "Ossinev".

"Israel praises ‘exceptionally restrained’ protests in Gaza after killing 4 Palestinians, three of them teenagers”

Only four murders. There might well ~~will~~ be an internal investigation within the most moral to establish the cause for this alarming drop off in kill rates and the threat to the Zio incremental genocide solution. Perhaps a few more moral murders in the West Bank will do the trick. Perhaps GruppenFuhrer Bennett will be asking for a special kill voucher and will bring along his girlfriend Shaked to show her the ropes and register her first kills. She is definitely up for it.

R.C.

*In my youth, one could buy at a hobby store, rockets shaped like the real thing, which would rise to about 200 feet? and then parachute back down. I don't know if they are still available. Since then, I have learned much of the world, and now know what most likely propelled them.

For example, most fireworks are launched by the equivalent of modern mortars (first big use: WWI). Thus you do not see the shell on its way up, and if you can, you can see its ever deteriorating rate of climb ( deceleration ) as gravity takes its inevitable toll.

In contrast, rocket propelled items usually and obviously accelerate with exhaust and likely involve some form of the exact same stuff used to launch some of our biggest commercial/military rockets. The fuel on these things usually has the consistency of a pencil eraser, and once lit off, burns until extinguished. (Its oxidizer for combustion is included in the rubbery mixture.)

This is almost certainly the same type stuff behind every RPG you've ever read about. Otherwise, the such 'rockets' would require a separate oxygen component for combustion, etc. (Discussion of difference between rockets and jets left to whoever wishes to learn more.)

But because I know a little basic physical science, my explanation of the above makes me a 'potential T-word'; (just like all of us- for an infinity of different and likewise worthless reasons.)

WHAT - ever.

R.C.

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In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

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Israel has praise for 'exceptionally restrained' Gaza protests after killing 4 Palestinians, three of them teenagers

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