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 Thousands protest for Palestinian right of return
Thousands rallied in support of Palestinians
Friday, with demonstrators in Jordan's capital heeding a call by
Facebook organisers to demand a sovereign Palestinian state,
others near the Jordanian-Israeli
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Gaza:
At least one Palestinian has been killed and up to 80 others
wounded in northern Gaza as Israeli troops opened fire on a march
of at least 1,000 people heading towards the Erez crossing between
the Gaza Strip and Israel.
A group of Palestinians, including children, marching to mark "Nakba
Day" were shot by the Israeli army after crossing a Hamas
checkpoint and entering what Israel calls a "buffer zone" - an
empty area between checkpoints where Israeli soldiers generally
shoot trespassers, Al Jazeera correspondent Nicole Johnston
reported from Gaza City on Sunday.
"We are just hearing that one person has been killed and about 80
people have been injured," Johnston said.
"There are about 500-600 Palestinian youth gathered at the Erez
border crossing point. They don't usually march as far as the
border. There has been intermittent gunfire from the Israeli side
for the last couple of hours.
"Hamas has asked us to leave; they are trying to move people away
from the Israeli border. They say seeing so many people at the
border indicates a shift in politics in the area."
In south Tel Aviv, one Israeli man was killed and 17 were injured
when a 22-year-old Arab Israeli driver drove his truck into a
number of vehicles on one of the city's main roads.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the driver, from an
Arab village called Kfar Qasim in the West Bank, was arrested at
the scene and is being questioned.
"Based on the destruction and the damage at the scene, we have
reason to believe that it was carried out deliberately," Rosenfeld
said. He did not believe the motive was directly linked to the
anniversary of the Nakba.
The Nakba, or "catastrophe", is how Palestinians refer to the 1948
founding of the state of Israel.
One of the biggest demonstrations
was held near Qalandiya refugee camp and checkpoint, the main
secured entry point into the West Bank from Israel, where about
100 protesters marched, Al Jazeera correspondent Nisreen El
Shmayleh reported from Ramallah.
Some injuries were reported from tear gas canisters fired at
protesters there, El Shmayleh said.
Small clashes were reported throughout various neighbourhoods of
East Jerusalem and cities in the West Bank, between stone-throwing
Palestinians and Israeli security forces.
Israeli police said 20 arrests were made in the East Jerusalem
area of Issawiyah for throwing stones and petrol bombs at Israeli
border police officers.
About 70 arrests have been made in East Jerusalem throughout the
Nakba protests that began on Friday, two days ahead of the May 15
anniversary, police spokesman Rosenfeld said.
Tensions had risen a day earlier after a 17-year-old Palestinian
boy died of a gunshot wound suffered amid clashes on Friday in
Silwan, another East Jerusalem neighbourhood.
Police said the source of the gunfire was unclear and that police
were investigating, while local sources told Al Jazeera that
Ayyash was shot in random firing of live ammunition by guards of
Jewish settlers living in nearby Beit Yonatan.
Syrian state television reported that Israeli forces killed four
Syrian citizens who had been taking part in an anti-Israeli rally
on the Syrian side of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights border on
Sunday.
Israeli army radio said earlier that dozens were wounded when
Palestinian refugees from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights
border were shot for trying to break through the frontier fence.
There was no comment on reports of the injured.
Meanwhile, Matthew Cassel, a journalist in the Lebanese town of
Ras Maroun, on the southern border with Israel, told Al Jazeera
that at least two Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon were
killed in clashes there.
"Tens of thousands of refugees marched to the border fence to
demand their right to return where they were met by Israeli
soldiers," he said.
"Many were killed. I don't know how many but I saw with my own
eyes a number of unconscious and injured, and at least two dead.
"Now the Lebanese army has moved in, people are running back up
the mountain to get away from the army."
A local medical source told AFP news agency that Israeli gunfire
killed six people and wounded 71 others in Ras Maroun.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned Sunday's
demonstrations.
“I regret that there are extremists among Israeli Arabs and in
neighbouring countries who have turned the day on which the State
of Israel was established, the day on which the Israeli democracy
was established, into a day of incitement, violence and rage",
Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting.
"There is no place for this, for denying the existence of the
State of Israel. No to extremism and no to violence. The opposite
is true", he said.
Earlier Sunday Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas-controlled
Gaza, repeated the group's call for the end of the state of
Israel.
Addressing Muslim worshippers in Gaza City on Sunday, Haniyeh said
Palestinians marked this year's Nakba "with great hope of bringing
to an end the Zionist project in Palestine".
"To achieve our goals in the liberation of our occupied land, we
should have one leadership,'' Haniyeh said, praising the recent
unity deal with its rival, Fatah, the political organisation which
controls the West Bank under Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas'
leadership.
Meanwhile, a 63 second-long siren rang midday in commemoration of
the Nakba's 63rd anniversary.
Over 760,000 Palestinians - estimated today to number 4.7 million
with their descendants - fled or were driven out of their homes in
the conflict that followed Israel's creation.
Many took refuge in neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and
elsewhere. Some continue to live in refugee camps.
About 160,000 Palestinians stayed behind in what is now Israeli
territory and are known as Arab Israelis. They now total around
1.3 million, or some 20 percent of Israel's population.
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