Several thousands of Palestinians in Gaza kicked off their six-week-long protest called the Great March of Return on Friday, March 30, after marching towards the Israel border. It was on this day in 1976 that the policemen of Israel shot dead six Palestinian citizens of Israel while they protested Tel Aviv's expropriation of huge Palestinian land.

March 30 has since been remembered as Palestine Land Day and is seen as an important date in Palestinian's political life. It is symbolic of Palestine's resistance to Israel's occupation.

On Friday, Palestinian officials said dozens of people on their side were injured in a gunfire near Jabaliya in northern Gaza strip and Rafah in the south. They had also reported before the protest about the death of a farmer in tank fire. The Israeli military, on the other hand, reported about "rioting" in as many as six places and defended the firing, saying it was aimed at the "main instigators".

The Palestinians have set up five camps near the Israel border for the six-week protest. The killing of the farmer drew a strong reaction from Hamas, the militant group that dominates the Gaza Strip, which accused the Israelis of intimidating the protesters and urging them not to join the protests.

The Israeli foreign ministry also let know its strong stand on the issue, saying the protest was a "deliberate attempt to provoke a confrontation with Israel" and held Hamas and other Palestinian organisations taking part in the protest for being solely responsible for the clashes.

The current protest is scheduled to conclude on May 15 or Nakba Day, a date which is again a memorable one for the Palestinians. It was on this day in 1948 that several thousand Palestinians were displaced over the creation of Israel.

For breaking news & Instant updates throughout the day</s>GAZA-ISRAEL BORDER: At least seven Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured by Israeli security forces confronting one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations along the Israel-Gaza border in recent years, Gaza medical officials said.

One of the dead was aged 16 and most of the casualties were struck by gunfire, according to Palestinian medics who estimated the number of wounded at around 500 by mid-afternoon.

The Israeli military said that its troops had used “riot dispersal means and firing towards main instigators” and that some of the demonstrators were “rolling burning tires and hurling stones” at the border fence and at soldiers.

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 used a drone in at least one location to drop tear gas.

The Palestinian protest marked “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.

The demonstrators demanded 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.

Tensions ran high at the start of the long-planned tent protest that began on Good Friday and the start of the Jewish Passover and is scheduled to last for six weeks. Israeli security forces are customarily on a state of high alert during holidays, with tighter restrictions on movement of Palestinians.

There were also small protests in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. But the main focus was Gaza, from which Israeli soldiers and settlers withdrew in 2005 after 38 years. The Gaza Strip is now ruled by the Islamist Hamas group and blockaded by Israel.

Gaza officials said tens of thousands of protesters gathered at five locations along the 65-km (40-mile), largely desert frontier with Israel. The Israeli military estimate was 17,000.

Families brought their children to camps just a few hundred metres (yards) from the border fence, with football fields marked out in the sand, and scout bands playing.

But hundreds of Palestinian youths ignored calls from the organisers and from the Israeli military to keep away, increasing the risk of confrontation with Israeli troops who had taken up positions on the other side of the fence.

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 dirt mounds to stop any attempt to breach the barrier.—Reuters</s>Relatives of a Palestinian farmer who was killed along Israel border with Gaza, react at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip March 30, 2018. — Reuters picGAZA CITY, March 30 — A Palestinian farmer was killed in Gaza by an Israeli strike early this morning, the health ministry in the enclave said, ahead of a day of major protests.

A spokesman for the ministry said one farmer was killed and another injured by Israeli artillery fire near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.

The ministry identified the victim as 27-year-old Omar Samour.

Local eyewitnesses said he was on his land near the border when the incident occurred.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Israeli army of the strike.

It comes just hours before the start of a major demonstration, which is set to kick off six weeks of protests leading up to the inauguration of the new US embassy in Jerusalem around May 14.

Dubbed “The Great March of Return”, the protests, which include hundreds of people camping close to the sealed and heavily guarded Israeli-Gaza border, has the backing of Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas.

The protests have raised concerns in Israel about potential border breaches, with the army adding hundreds of reinforcements, including more than 100 special forces snipers, along the border in recent days.

Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2008. — AFP</s>TEL AVIV - Tens of thousands of Palestinians followed the call to demonstrate on the border with Israel on Friday (March 30). At least 16 died and hundreds were injured, most of them by inhaling tear gas. The event is supposed to kick off a 45-day-long campaign of protests. The danger that this could lead to more serious violence, even war, is enormous, even though this is something neither Hamas nor Israel want at present.

Are fears of a new war in Gaza now becoming reality? For months now, the potential for armed conflict has not loomed as large as it did on Friday.

About 30,000 Palestinian demonstrators had gathered at several points near the border with Israel. The Palestinian organisers had vowed the protests would be peaceful. Even the Islamist group Hamas, which runs Gaza, had untypically urged participants to remain non-violent. Still, demonstrators clashed with Israeli security forces, pelting them with rocks and firebombs.

An Israeli army spokesman claimed terrorists were using the cover of the masses to prepare attacks. "We know every single person that was killed yesterday by name and his affiliation with terrorist organisations," Brigadier- General Ronen Manelli told The Straits Times on Saturday. He charged that all the people killed were "18 to 30-year-old males that were actively engaged in attacking troops or security installations along the border". In one incident, two men allegedly attempted to shoot soldiers. In three incidents, Palestinians tried to launch projectiles at Israel but failed, Brig-Gen Manelli contended.

Israeli troops used tear gas and live fire to force the protesters back as they approached the security fence.

The howls of sirens of Palestinian ambulances mingled with the buzzing of reconnaissance drones above the masses. Again and again, shots rang through the air. Israel's army had prepared intensively for this day: Soldiers had laid new barbed wire to prevent violations of the border. The top brass massed troops, tanks and more than 100 snipers at the border, and made it amply clear that anyone who tried to cross into Israel illegally should expect to be shot.

It was the culmination of a tense week. Last Saturday, four Palestinians entered Israel from Gaza and set fire to construction equipment next to the border. The next day, a military exercise of 30,000 Hamas fighters triggered a false alarm in Israel, activating its missile defence system that shot salvos into the night sky. Many thought that the anticipated war with Hamas had broken out. In the following days, armed and unarmed Palestinians entered Israel daily, and the Israeli army responded by bombing Hamas positions.

Everything came to a head in Friday's mass protests. But even they are supposed to become but the opening shot of a new period of even higher tensions.

The organisers of Friday's events regard them as the overture of a campaign stretching over the next 45 days that span highly symbolic dates: Friday was Earth Day, a day on which Arabs have been protesting against Israel since 1976.

The Jewish Passover began on the very same day, a time when a religious fringe holds biblical rites in Jerusalem near the Temple Mount every year. These practices feed Muslim fears of an Israeli takeover of the mountain which today houses the Al Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest mosques in the world. In April, Israel celebrates its 70th anniversary. And on May 15, Palestinians mourn the establishment of the Israeli state. This year, tempers will be especially frayed because this day may also mark the opening of the new US embassy in Jerusalem.

While Israeli bulldozers set up earthworks on their side of the border to prevent intrusions, Hamas bulldozers flattened the fields 640m farther to the west to set up tent cities that will house thousands of demonstrators for continuous vigils until May, and become starting points for what they hope will be weekly protests.

Israeli spokesmen have blamed Hamas for these developments. The group did indeed provide logistical support, bussing demonstrators to the border, securing them, and sending their leaders to the rallies, where they played football or held fiery speeches. But behind the scenes, Hamas looks more like a political free-rider. Photos of the mass events make that clear.

In the sea of flags, not a single flag of the organisation appeared. That had been the request of the approximately 20 young activists who have formed a committee to organise these protests. Only two of them are loosely affiliated with Hamas. They wanted "no confrontation with Israel, but to make it clear to the world what kind of large, unbearable prison we are living in", one member of the executive committee told the Israeli daily Haaretz.

Other leaders of the protests, however, state that the aim of the protests is the "return to our villages and towns". About 1.2 million residents of Gaza are defined as refugees, Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes when Israel was established in 1948, or their descendants. To Israel, their demand to return into Israeli territory is anathema, because it is viewed as a threat to the very existence of the Jewish state.

In fact, it was not Hamas' leadership but the lack thereof, the powerlessness and sense of purposelessness of the Palestinian leadership that drove tens of thousands to the border on Friday. The Palestinians are stuck in limbo on every level. The internecine strife between Hamas and the secular Fatah, which controls the West Bank, continues despite several reconciliation agreements.

That affects Gaza particularly hard. Here Fatah, which controls the money, no longer pays salaries, and provides little electricity or medicine. The water is contaminated and around half of the population are unemployed. Diplomatically, neither Hamas nor Fatah have anything to offer: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' strategy of negotiations with Israel have failed.

The recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was a humiliating defeat for him. The Islamists offer no alternative. Militarily they stand no chance against Israel, which is constantly upgrading its defences. All the while, the Arab world has all but abandoned the Palestinians and prefers to align itself with Israel, which it sees as a potent ally against Iran.

This gave rise to a new, young leadership in Gaza, which aims to fulfil the national aspirations of their people with non-violent tactics. On Friday, it had already achieved one of its goals. After years, the Gaza Strip was once again making headlines worldwide.

In Israel, too, people have begun to debate Gaza's problems intensively again. The strategy carries enormous risks, however: The demonstrations can easily get out of control. Radical Islamists like to use the mass protests to set up explosive devices at the border fence.

This is exactly what happened on Friday, Brig-Gen Manelli charged. "These are no mass protests, but terror operations." He also warned: "Hamas wants to turn the border fence into a place of constant friction. That may force us to begin acting inside Gaza."

Friday's fatalities could heat up the mood in Gaza and the West Bank, giving rise to new attacks. Israel could overreact, and violence may escalate at any given moment. So while the protests could be a sign of political change that brings with it a small glimmer of hope, it also holds an enormous potential for war.</s>GAZA-ISRAEL BORDER (Reuters) - At least 16 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured on Friday by Israeli security forces confronting one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations along the Israel-Gaza border in recent years, Gaza medical officials said.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians, pressing for a right of return for refugees to what is now Israel, gathered 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.

The United Nations Security Council was briefed on the violence in Gaza on Friday at the request of Kuwait. Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour told the council at least 17 Palestinian civilians were killed and more than 1,400 injured.

Families brought their children to the encampments just a few hundred meters (yards) from the Israeli security barrier with the Hamas Islamist-run enclave, 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 organizers 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 live fire only against people trying to sabotage the border security fence, some of them rolling burning tyres and throwing rocks, and that at least two of the dead were Hamas operatives.

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.

One of the 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, Gaza health officials said.

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 President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that Israel was responsible for the violence and declared Saturday a national day of mourning.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an independent, transparent investigation and appealed “to those concerned to refrain from any act that could lead to further casualties and in particular any measures that could place civilians in harm’s way,” his spokesman said in a statement.

A senior U.N. official told the U.N. Security Council there are fears the situation in Gaza “might deteriorate in the coming days.”

The United States, a close Israel ally, told the council it was “deeply saddened” by the loss of life.

“We urge those involved to take steps to lower tensions and reduce the risk of new clashes. Bad actors who use protests as a cover to incite violence endanger innocent lives,” U.S. diplomat Walter said.

A Palestinian runs during clashes with Israeli troops, during a tent city protest along the Israel border with Gaza, demanding the right to return to their homeland, the southern Gaza Strip March 30, 2018. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

RIGHT OF RETURN

The protest presented a rare show of unity among rival Palestinian factions in the impoverished Gaza Strip, where pressure has been building on Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah movement to end a decade-old rift. Reconciliation efforts to end the feud have been faltering for months.

The demonstration 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.

Hamas, which seeks Israel’s destruction, had earlier urged protesters to adhere to the “peaceful nature” of the protest.

Israel has long ruled out any right of return, fearing an influx of Arabs that would wipe out its Jewish majority. It argues that refugees should resettle in a future state the Palestinians seek in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Peace talks to that end collapsed in 2014.

Slideshow (24 Images)

There were also small protests in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and about 65 Palestinians were injured.

In Gaza, the protest was dubbed “The March of Return” and some of the tents bore names of the refugees’ original villages in what is now Israel, written in Arabic and Hebrew alike.

Citing security concerns, Israel, which withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, blockades the coastal territory, maintaining tight restrictions on the movement of Palestinians and goods across the frontier. Egypt, battling an Islamist insurgency in neighboring Sinai, keeps its border with Gaza largely closed.</s>At least 15 Palestinians were killed and hundreds of others injured Friday by Israeli security forces along the Israel-Gaza border, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

The Israeli military said its troops used "riot dispersal means" to quell one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations and outbursts of violence along the border in recent years.

Violence erupted as thousands of Palestinians approached the border. The Israeli military said its troops responded to "main instigators" who were throwing stones and rolling burning tires. The Israeli military also accused militants of trying to carry out attacks under the cover of mass protests.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces fired live bullets, rubber-coated steel pellets and tear gas, killing at least 15 Palestinians and injuring about 1,400 others, including more than 750 injured by live fire.

It was the deadliest day in Gaza, a self-governing Palestinian territory, since last fall.

The U.N. Security Council said it would hold closed-door talks on Friday evening about the situation in Gaza.

Palestinians have constructed protest tent camps along the entire length of the Gaza Strip in five locations that are expected to remain in place for six weeks. Whole families were expected to participate in the tent camp demonstrations.

The Israeli military estimated about 30,000 demonstrators were taking part in the protests.

The weekslong demonstrations, to end on May 15, are designed to commemorate the Nakba or "catastrophe," when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had to flee their land or were expelled during the war in 1948 that led to the creation of Israel.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman warned the Gaza demonstrators in an Arabic post on Twitter: "The leadership of Hamas is playing with your lives. Anyone who comes close to the fence today puts himself at risk. I suggest to you to continue your lives and not participate in a provocation."

Israel has deployed more than 100 snipers along the Gaza Strip.

The demonstration is expected to end at the same time Washington plans to open an embassy in Jerusalem, a move that has infuriated Palestinians who have claimed the eastern section of the city as the capital of their future state.

On Thursday, Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the U.N., said the demonstration was an "organized planned provocation" and asserted "Israel's right to defend its sovereignty and protect its citizens."</s>GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Large crowds of flag-waving Palestinian protesters marched toward the Gaza border fence with Israel on Friday, some of them throwing stones and drawing Israeli fire that officials said killed at least five people.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said at least 500 Palestinians were hurt by live fire, rubber-coated steel pellets or tear gas fired by Israeli forces at several locations along the fence, but did not provide the breakdown.

Earlier Friday, in a separate incident, a Palestinian farmer was killed by an Israeli tank shell while he was working in his field before dawn, the ministry said.

The protests had begun as mass sit-ins organized by Gaza’s Hamas rulers, but quickly spun out of control.

Israel’s military said thousands of Palestinians rolled burning tires and threw stones at forces stationed on the border, and that troops opened fire at the “main instigators.”

Palestinian witnesses said hundreds of Palestinians participated in clashes, while thousands more gathered in tent encampments set up in five sites several at a distance of several hundred meters from the border.

Such mass gatherings near the border signal a new tactic by Hamas — and one that might prove more challenging to Israel’s military than previous smaller protests.

Military officials have said they will respond harshly to any breaches of the border fence. At the same time, a rising number of casualties will likely stoke more border tensions, a scenario Israel hopes to avoid.

The sit-ins are seen as a new attempt by Hamas to break a crippling, decade-old Gaza border blockade by Israel and Egypt that has made it increasingly difficult for the Islamic militant group to govern.

Other tactics over the years, including Hamas’ cross-border wars with Israel and attempts to reconcile with political rival Mahmoud Abbas, the West Bank-based Palestinian president, have failed to end Gaza’s isolation.

“The large crowds … reflect the Palestinian people’s determination to achieve the right of return and break the siege and no force can stop this right,” he said.

Friday’s actions are to be the first in a series of protests planned in Gaza in coming weeks. The protests are to culminate on May 15, the 70th anniversary of Israel’s creation, with a march through the border fence.

Palestinians commemorate the date as the anniversary of their mass displacement and uprooting during the 1948 Mideast war over Israel’s creation. The vast majority of Gaza residents are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven from communities in what is now Israel.

Israel’s military said ahead of Friday’s protests that it doubled its standard troop level along the border, deploying snipers, special forces and paramilitary border police units, which specialize in riot control.

Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, commander of the Israeli military’s Southern Command, which includes the border, said Friday that “we are identifying attempts to carry out terror attacks under the camouflage of riots.”

He urged Gaza residents to stay away from the border, and held Hamas responsible for any violence there.

Previous protests near the border fence in recent months have turned deadly, with Israeli soldiers firing live bullets at Palestinians burning tires, throwing stones or hurling firebombs.

On Friday, mosques across Gaza called on Palestinians to join the protests. Buses took protesters to the border area, including five tent encampments set up from north to south, several hundred meters from the border fence. By noon, thousands had arrived at the encampments.

Ghanem Abdelal, 50, distributed water bottles to family members sitting on a map near one of the tents east of Gaza City. He said he hopes the protest “will bring a breakthrough, an improvement, to our life in Gaza.”

Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ supreme leader, visited the tents, along with Gaza leader Yehiyeh Sinwar.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said five people were killed by Israeli fire in subsequent clashes, including a 16-year-old boy and a 33-year-old man.

Several hours before the confrontations, a Palestinian farmer identified as 27-year-old Amr Samour was killed by an Israeli tank shell in southern Gaza, the Health Ministry said.

Israel said troops had directed tank fire at suspicious figures near the border fence in the area.

Yasser Samour, a relative and fellow farmer, said Amr Samour was harvesting parsley before dawn, in hopes of selling it fresh in the market later in the day.

“I was working on the next field,” Yasser Samour said. “We heard shelling landing on the field where Amr works. We ran there and found him hit directly with a shell. We were more than a kilometer away from the border.”

Another farmer was wounded in the leg by shrapnel, Samour said.

Associated Press writers Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and Karin Laub in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.</s>Palestinians attend a demonstration near the Gaza Strip border with Israel in eastern Gaza City. | AP

GAZA CITY: Thousands of Palestinians marched near the Gaza-Israel border on Friday in a major protest leading to clashes with Israeli forces, in which more than 50 Gazans were wounded.

At least 10,000 Gazans gathered in different spots along the border, AFP journalists said, with smaller numbers entering within a few hundreds metres (yards) of the heavily fortified fence.

Israeli tanks and snipers were positioned on the other side of the border, using tear gas and live fire to force back the protesters.

Moe than 50 people were wounded by live fire, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

IN PICS: Clashes leave 16 Palestinians dead and hundreds injured near Israel border

Israel's military said in a statement that "thousands of Palestinians are rioting in six locations throughout the Gaza Strip, rolling burning tyres and hurling stones at the security fence and at (Israeli) troops, who are responding with riot dispersal means and firing towards main instigators."

Earlier Friday, before the main protests began, a Palestinian farmer was killed by Israeli tank fire near the border.

The Israeli military said the tank fire came after "two suspects approached the security fence ... and began operating suspiciously."

The march kicks off up to six weeks of protests dubbed "The Great March of Return," in the runup to the inauguration of the new US embassy in Jerusalem around May 14.

Among those taking part on Friday was Ismail Haniya, the leader of the Islamist movement Hamas that controls Gaza.

"There is no alternative to Palestine and no solution except to return," he said in a statement, referring to Palestinian refugees seeking to go back to land they fled or were expelled from in 1948 that is now inside Israel.

Israel has accused Hamas of seeking to stir up protests to encourage violence.</s>GAZA-ISRAEL BORDER (Reuters) - At least 12 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured by Israeli security forces confronting one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations along the Israel-Gaza border in recent years, Gaza medical officials said.

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 with the Hamas Islamist-run enclave, 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.

Live fire was used only against people trying to sabotage the border security fence and at least two of the dead were Hamas operatives, an Israeli military official said.

Palestinian health officials said Israeli forces used mostly gunfire against the protesters, in addition to tear gas and rubber bullets. Two people were killed by tank fire, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Witnesses said the military had deployed a drone over at least one location to drop tear gas.

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.

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.

Israel has long ruled out any right of return, fearing an influx of Arabs that would wipe out its Jewish majority. It argues that refugees should resettle in a future state the Palestinians seek in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Peace talks to that end have been frozen since 2014.

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.

There were also small protests in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and about 65 Palestinians were injured.

In Gaza, the protest was dubbed “The March of Return” and some of the tents bore names of the refugees’ original villages in what is now Israel, written in Arabic and Hebrew alike.

Citing security concerns, Israel, which withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, blockades the coastal territory, maintaining tight restrictions on the movement of Palestinians and goods across the frontier. Egypt, battling an Islamist insurgency in neighbouring Sinai, keeps its border with Gaza largely closed.

At on Gaza protest site, 80-year-old Mansi Nassar walked towards the frontier with the aid of his cane, disregarding entreaties to remain 700 metres (2,300 feet) from the barrier.

“I was born in Beit Darras inside Palestine and I will accept no less than returning to it,” he said, referring to his former home village just south of the modern Israeli city of Ashdod. The village no longer exists.</s>GAZA-ISRAEL BORDER (Reuters) - At least 16 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured by Israeli security forces confronting one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations along the Israel-Gaza border in recent years, Gaza medical officials said.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians, pressing for a right of return for refugees to what is now Israel, gathered 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 from the Israeli security barrier with the Hamas Islamist-run enclave, 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 live fire only against people trying to sabotage the border security fence, some of them rolling burning tyres and throwing rocks, and that at least two of the dead were Hamas operatives.

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.

One of the 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, Gaza health officials said.

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 President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that Israel was responsible for the violence and declared Saturday a national day of mourning.

The United Nations Security Council was due to meet later on Friday to discuss the situation in Gaza, diplomats said.

The protest presented a rare show of unity among rival Palestinian factions in the impoverished Gaza Strip, where pressure has been building on Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah movement to end a decade-old rift. Reconciliation efforts to end the feud have been faltering for months.

The demonstration 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.

Hamas, which seeks Israel’s destruction, had earlier urged protesters to adhere to the “peaceful nature” of the protest.

Israel has long ruled out any right of return, fearing an influx of Arabs that would wipe out its Jewish majority. It argues that refugees should resettle in a future state the Palestinians seek in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Peace talks to that end collapsed in 2014.

There were also small protests in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and about 65 Palestinians were injured.

In Gaza, the protest was dubbed “The March of Return” and some of the tents bore names of the refugees’ original villages in what is now Israel, written in Arabic and Hebrew alike.

Citing security concerns, Israel, which withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, blockades the coastal territory, maintaining tight restrictions on the movement of Palestinians and goods across the frontier. Egypt, battling an Islamist insurgency in neighbouring Sinai, keeps its border with Gaza largely closed.
On Land Day, the start of a planned six-week protest at the Israeli-Gazan border involving tens of thousands of Palestinians, Israeli forces kill 16 Palestinians and wound over 1,100 others as tens of thousands of protestors approach the border fence.