Some 31 years have passed since the launch of the Stones Uprising (Intifada) and the Palestinian people still adhere to all their tools to fight the occupation starting with stones. Some other tools were used at the Great March of Return to distinguish the mass protest that confused the political calculations of the Israeli occupation and its military and security apparatuses.
The Supreme Commission for the Great March of Return named the last Friday protest at the GMR as “The Great Stones Uprising” which coincided with the anniversary of the First Intifada of the Palestinian people in 1987. The intifada was triggered when an Israeli truck driver hit a car in Gaza Strip carrying Palestinian workers from Jabalia on the eighth of December of that year. The Israeli driver killed four workers and wounded others.
Palestinians believed the killing was intentional. In the following day and during the funeral a spontaneous mass protest broke out in which crowds threw stones at an Israeli occupation forces military outpost in Jabalia. The Israeli soldiers opened fire without being able to disperse the crowds. In the face of the stone barrage and Molotovs the Israeli forces asked for reinforcements marking the first spark of the Intifada. Killing the workers was considered as the straw that broke the camel’s back and the main reason for the outbreak of the intifada.
Name
The First Palestinian Uprising or the Stone Uprising was called as such because stones were the main instrument of attack and defense used by protesters against the Israeli occupation forces.
The Intifada was a form of spontaneous Palestinian popular protest over the general situation of the refugee camps the spread of unemployment and the humiliation of national feelings and the daily oppression practiced by the occupation forces against the Palestinians.
It is estimated that 1300 Palestinians were martyred in the events of the first Intifada by the Israeli occupation forces while 160 Israelis were killed.
Strong return
The Great March of Return launched by the Palestinians since March 30 2018 on the anniversary of Land Day marked a milestone in the history of the Palestinian cause and in the nature of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israeli occupation.
The Great March of Return with its peaceful tools brought to mind how the Palestinian people never forgot the nature of their struggle against the Israeli occupation and their development of weapons of all kinds and forms where they used new tools that surprised and confused the calculations of the Israeli entity in an unprecedented manner.
It appeared that a new era for Land Day was written on March 30 2018 after the number of martyrs on this day was three times higher than the number of Palestinians killed in the same date in 1976 which amounted to six martyrs which made it a different day especially that it marked the beginning of a mobilization that continues to this day.
Palestinian sources confirmed that on Land Day the first Friday of the Great March of Return the crowds that took part in the mass protest surprised the Palestinian factions that led the mass action in terms of size and popular response after tens of thousands of Palestinians went to the border fence with Israel.
