On the 70th anniversary of UN resolution 194 the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) issued a new report entitled “Voices of Return: Documenting Israel’s Repression of the Great March of Return.”
The new report is based on a PRC submission to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 protests that began on March 30th in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip. The series of demonstrations named the “Great March of Return” called on Israel to end the ongoing siege and implement the refugees’ collective right of return to the lands from which they were displaced in 1948.
The demonstrations have been widely covered in the mainstream media in particular around May 14th when the Israeli military killed 52 Palestinians and injured over 2400 in one single day. Yet beneath the headlines and numbers of casualties detailed witness accounts of the events remain underreported. PRC’s investigation seeks to fill this gap by bringing to light the voices of Palestinian protesters and victims injured during the demonstrations.
The testimonies and other information gathered in the report show in detail how Israeli soldiers shot unarmed protesters bystanders journalists and medical staff approximately 100-400m from the fence constituting extrajudicial executions and deliberate maiming of civilians. Prima facie evidence and testimonies show that none of the Palestinians victim included in this report were endangering Israeli forces who remained located on the other side of the fence.
PRC interviewed two journalists who were both shot in their legs while wearing a “press” vest. Khalil was shot in the upper left thigh while standing approximately 200 meters away from the fence and was wounded while taking a “selfie” with friends. Khalil said that the Israeli military shot him from the back as he was not facing the barrier separating the Gaza Strip from Israel.
The other journalist interviewed Duaa was hit by a sniper shot as she was filming another protester being treated by paramedics after being injured. Both journalists were hit with a particular type of bullet which expands and mushrooms inside the body that indicates the military’s intention to cause maximum harm and greater possibility to inflict life-changing injuries.
Amnesty International has reported Israel’s use of US-manufactured M24 Remington sniper rifles shooting 7.62mm hunting ammunition which have the “mushrooming” effects described by the victims we interviewed.
Jihad a young Palestinian woman in her twenties was standing on Jakar street a road roughly parallel to the fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel at approximately 100 meters from the barrier when she was first hit with hunting ammunition in her left leg below the knee. Jihad was further hit two times in her right hand and shoulder with regular bullets by gunshots seemingly targeting the medical staff that was attending to her.
PRC interviewed a child that lost a leg after being targeted for merely raising the Palestinian flag during one of the demonstrations. Muhannad was also tending to a fellow protester injured at the time he was shot. He was hit with hunting ammunition above the knee in the thigh which caused him to undergo arterial amputation.
“The bullet came in from my ear and out from my head.” said Adelmalek an 18-year old who was shot while standing 300 meters from the fence near the Awda refugee camp east of Jabalia.
Another young Palestinian Ouni was hopeful that the peaceful demonstration will be effective as he explained “We wanted to push for lifting the siege unblock border crossings . . . we simply wanted to live a normal life!” He was also shot with hunting ammunition that caused bone fragmentation in his leg.
Contrary to claims of Israeli authorities a grassroots network of activists led the creation and organization of this series of mass demonstrations. The report argues that driving the open-fire policy of the Israeli government against protesters is a longstanding criminalization of Palestinian refugees attempting to cross the armistice lines. Palestinian refugees are criminalized by the Israeli state and media as “infiltrators” and prevented to return to the lands from which they were displaced through a series of state laws and policies.
PRC concluded that the Israeli army’s response to Palestinians protesting against a colonial siege along the 1949 armistice line clearly violates a number of core principles of international humanitarian law. The killing and maiming of protesters journalists paramedics and children not engaged in any military activity amounts to a violation of the international legal principles of distinction proportionality and of precautions in attack.
