300 Meters in Gaza: Snipers,
[size=31]Burning Tires and a Contested Fence[/size]
A fence that divides Israel and Gaza has become the latest flashpoint in the decades-old conflict, with Israeli soldiers unleashing lethal force against mostly unarmed Arab protesters who have been demonstrating every Friday for the past several weeks.
Israeli farming communities
A protest in Khan Younis on March 30. The photographer, Yasser Murtaja, was killed in a protest in the same location the following week. Aerial image by Yasser Murtaja, Ain Media
The image above shows how each side is arrayed in Khan Younis, one of five demonstration sites where 35 Palestinians have been killed since the protests began nearly three weeks ago.
The protests resumed on Friday, and the Palestinians plan to keep the weekly protests going with large turnouts until May 15, when many plan to try to cross the fence en masse. The Gazans are protesting Israel’s blockade, which has been choking off the impoverished coastal strip for more than 10 years. They also want to reassert the rights of refugees and their descendants to reclaim their ancestral lands in Israel, 70 years after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced. In Israel’s view, there is nothing benign about the Palestinian claim of a right of return. It would amount to the destruction of Israel by demographic means. And they see the protests as providing cover for violent attacks.
The Fence
Palestinian protesters stood in front of an Israeli tank during a protest in Khan Younis on April 3, 2018. Khalil Hamra/Associated Press
The fence that separates Gaza’s 2 million people from Israel is not the sturdiest of barriers. To penetrate Israel, a Gazan would have to get past a crude barbed-wire barrier and cross a short distance, then get over or through a 10-foot-high “smart fence” packed with sensors to detect infiltrators. If a crowd of thousands surged toward the fence, it would take about 30 seconds to cross, the contractor who built it told Bloomberg News. “We don’t want to be in a position where we have to handle hundreds or thousands of people inside Israel,” Giora Eiland, a retired major general and former head of Israel’s National Security Council, said recently. “This is something we would not be able to contain. So the right way is to make sure nothing happens to the fence.”
That means stopping people from touching it, even with deadly force. Though the protests were initially billed as nonviolent, the Israelis say they have repeatedly discovered grenades and other explosives along the fence, and that Palestinians have sometimes thrown firebombs at their soldiers, not just rocks. Israeli forces have responded lethally.
Few Israelis believe Hamas, the militant Islamic group that rules Gaza and is running the protests, is capable of peaceful protest.
The closer to the fence protesters move, the more perilous it becomes for them. The Israelis have made clear that people they believe are “instigators” are fair game to be targeted. Videos have surfaced of people being shot with their backs turned to the fence, while praying, or with nothing in their hands.
The latest rules of engagement, according to one Israeli report, permit soldiers to shoot armed Palestinians within 300 yards of the fence, and unarmed people within 100 yards of it. The Israelis’ use of live ammunition has prompted demands for an investigation into possible war crimes. Israeli snipers have positioned themselves atop large sand berms that military engineers are continually reconfiguring with tanks positioned nearby. After protesters burned tires to obscure the soldiers’ view and rolled them toward the fence, the Israelis brought in giant industrial fans to disperse the thick black smoke and powerful water cannons to douse the fires. Soldiers have fired countless volleys of tear gas to try to push back crowds of demonstrators.
The military insists that its soldiers are instructed to shoot to warn, then shoot to wound, before shooting to kill. But the defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said: “Anyone who approaches the fence endangers his life.”
The Conflict Zone
An injured Palestinian protester being carried by fellow demonstrators during clashes with Israeli security forces near the frontier with Israel, east of Khan Younis, last week.Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Some of the protesters sit, while others dart around, taunting Israeli sharpshooters. And some risk their lives by trying to get up to the fence.
Among the Palestinians, approaching the fence makes a powerful statement of defiance, bravery and national pride. A Palestinian photographer has even begun giving wounded protesters framed photos taken of them shortly before they were shot. And the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a speech this week that the demonstrators had “taught the world how to be men.” The Palestinians have much to be angry about. A collapsing economy and a worsening public health crisis along with the 11-year blockade of the tiny, jam-packed territory makes it almost impossible to leave. But the effort is billed as the Great Return March for a reason: Most Gazans are Palestinian refugees or their descendants, and marching on the fence highlights their desire to reclaim the lands and homes from which they were displaced 70 years ago in the war surrounding Israel’s creation.
The Field Hospital
Nurses at a medical tent near the border with Israel, east of Khan Younis. Wissam Nassar for The New York Times
When a demonstrator is shot, others rush to him and quickly carry him off the field to waiting ambulances or to tents that triage and give first aid to the injured. Farthest from the fence, along a road leading to central Khan Younis, is a field hospital with doctors and enough equipment to perform procedures short of major surgery. Other medical tents are staffed mainly by volunteer nursing-school graduates.
As of Friday, 34 people had been killed, three of them under 18 years old, and more than 3,000 had been injured in the demonstrations, according to Gaza health officials. More than 1,000 have been hit by live fire; nearly 1,000 have suffered from gas inhalation; 300 from being hit by rubber bullets and eight people lost fingers or feet.
Families and Prayer
Palestinian men praying during a tent city protest along the Israel border east of Khan Younis. Wissam Nassar for The New York Times
Entire tent villages have been set up to meet the basic needs of demonstrators, and then some. Vendors sell falafel, nuts, sweets and lemonade from ramshackle huts. Once a day or so, a delivery arrives with free slices of pizza or cakes. Large dedicated prayer areas accommodate the faithful. Gaza journalists and radio hosts occupy other tents.
The tents nearest the fence, still not safe from Israeli snipers, house young men, some of them just groups of friends, others organized for various task such as providing tires to burn.
Farther back, many Gaza clans have pitched more elaborate tents with blankets and gas stoves inside, creating the feeling of an offbeat family reunion across much of the protest grounds. At the entrance to one tent, women baked saj, a round bread, over a wood fire on Thursday to hand out to demonstrators. Another tent, with coffee and comfortable sofas inside, was reserved for religious officials.
An aerial view of tents at Khan Younis on Wednesday. Wissam Nassar for The New York Times
The organizers have created a festival-like atmosphere, with a robust schedule of daily events: Volleyball and soccer games played by amputees, poetry readings, musical performances, even horse races. The sudden crackle of gunfire and wail of sirens are at times the only giveaways to what is happening a short distance beyond the tents to the east.
The Israeli Side
Agricultural fields at the Nir Oz kibbutz near Gaza on the Israeli side. Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times
Avocados, carrots and an abundance of other crops grow along the Gaza border on the Israeli side. Hundreds of Israeli citizens live within a mortar shell’s range of Gaza territory in small communities of farmers such as Nir Oz and Kisufim. The army says its fierce defense of the fence is protecting those citizens — and stopping infiltrators from kidnapping a soldier or two — a longstanding Hamas tactic.
In the Israeli community of Nahal Oz near Gaza on April 6, a group of young people climbed an old watchtower along the community’s western edge, looking out on the disturbances as if they were sitting in the nosebleed seats at a baseball game.
Parking lots full of tanks tucked away behind berms make up only part of the military’s presence along the Gaza border. A $2 billion underground wall project is under way to prevent Hamas from digging any more tunnels into Israel used by attackers. And Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile batteries protect southern cities such as Sderot from Gaza rockets — though its sensors are so easily triggered that air-raid alarms have been set off in the area by gunfire alone.
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