Deadly occupation

On Friday, the people of Gaza began what was meant to be a six-week protest called the Great Return March. It was meant to raise international awareness of the criminal blockage of Gaza by Israel and to press for Palestinian’s right to return to homes they were expelled from in 1948. The protest began on the anniversary of the day in 1976 when six unarmed people were killed by Israel for protesting the theft of their land and is meant to end on the day of the Nakba. It quickly turned into the largest massacre of Palestinians since the 2014 Gaza war as 18 people were killed and nearly 1,500 injured by Israeli soldiers. Israel disingenuously claims that it was preventing a breach of its borders by Hamas soldiers but video clearly shows them killing unarmed civilians, many of them teenagers. It also needs to be noted that the border is not internationally recognized, and has been unilaterally imposed by Israel as the demarcation point of their illegal blockage. Hamas is the elected government of Gaza, so even if its members had been part of the protest that would not in any way have delegitimised it. As it is, the thousands of protesters came from all walks of life and were simply expressing the universal human yearning for freedom.

This latest criminal outrage may be one of the worst perpetrated by Israel. The protesters were walking on a 500-metre stretch of agricultural land that is indisputably part of Gaza. Yet the Israeli army has militarised this land and seems to think it has the right to fire on anyone who dare walk on it. The two million Palestinians living in Gaza have been denied the right to clean water, healthcare and jobs. They are prisoners in their own land and are killed if they dare complain. The response from the rest of the world to Israel’s butchery has once again been tepid. While some, like Turkey’s Erdogan, were forthright in their condemnation, most countries, including the US, only called for peace while refusing to name the aggressor. Every country that refuses to denounce and take action against the system of apartheid Israel is practising is only complicit in its crimes. As the brave Palestinians continue to protest, all they look for is for the rest of the world to stand in solidarity against the occupation, and for their right to finally be allowed to return home.