At least 96 people have been injured by Israeli forces in the latest wave of extreme violence dealt out to Palestinian protestors at the weekly Great March of Return.
Protesting at the border wall between Gaza and the so-called state of Israel, dozens suffered the effects of teargas inhalation while 57 were suffering from gunshot wounds.
The Great March of Return is held every Friday and sees citizens of Gaza march to the border wall to raise awareness of the right for Palestinian refugees to return to the pre-1948 historical Palestine, to ensure the lifting of the deadly blockade against Gaza and protest the moving of the United States Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Last week on the October 25th march, 95 Palestinian civilians, including 43 children, a woman, 2 paramedics and a journalist, were shot and injured when the Israelis opened fire on the demonstration with live rounds.
Just the week prior, 69 Palestinians were injured when the Israelis opened fire on the march
As is always the case, the protestors had little to defend themselves with beyond catapults and stones while the heavily armed and armoured Israeli occupation forces fired on the crowd from watchtowers and armoured vehicles.
Since the beginning of the protests on March 30, 2018, Israel has killed over 214 Palestinians and injured at least 14,000. The dead include children, medical personnel and journalists. Many of the victims had suffered life-changing injuries.
In 2018, Doctors Without Borders called the Israeli response to the protests “inhuman and unacceptable”, with the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) stating that the type of ammunition that was being used by Israel was causing severe internal damage to the internal organs, muscle tissue and bones of the victims
“Many of the wounds observed by doctors in Gaza are consistent with those caused by high-velocity Israeli-manufactured Tavor rifles using 5.56mm military ammunition. Other wounds bear the hallmarks of US-manufactured M24 Remington sniper rifles shooting 7.62mm hunting ammunition, which expand and mushroom inside the body. The nature of these injuries shows that Israeli soldiers are using high-velocity military weapons designed to cause maximum harm to Palestinian protesters who do not pose an imminent threat to them.”
Amnesty International
Israel’s use of deadly force against protestors was condemned in a United Nations General Assembly resolution in June of 2018, with condemnation also coming from human rights organizations such Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, Amnesty International and by officials from the U.N.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has said that “those responsible for outrageous human rights violations must be held to account”. The U.N. has also since stated that Israeli actions during the Great March of Return “may have constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity”, presenting a full 252-page report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in March of this year.
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