Israeli Forces Shoot Unarmed Protesters from Across Gaza Security Fence, Killing at Least 15

• Israeli Forces Shoot Unarmed Protesters from Across Gaza Security Fence, Killing at Least 15
  by http://mondoweiss.net/, 30 March 2018
  We are closely following the horrifying news from Gaza this morning. The Israeli government said it would meet Gaza protesters with live fire across the border fence and duly massed snipers on the border; and it has followed through today, killing at least nine Palestinians, according to early reports. Sadly the number keeps climbing: as of 4 PM EST, Haaretz was reporting that 15 Palestinians had been killed.
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  The outrage on the left is reminiscent of the Mavi Marmara onslaught in 2010, when Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish aid ship trying to reach Gaza and killed nine of the aid volunteers. Even Israel supporters are already making this comparison— to an event that brought global condemnation/diplomatic embarrassment to Israel.
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  The Associated Press reports 1000 Palestinians injured by tear gas inhalation and from being struck by live rounds or rubber-coated bullets. The Times of Israel reports “scattered” protests on the West Bank. The first to be killed was a Palestinian farmer, said to be working his fields.
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  The human rights group B’Tselem issued an unequivocal statement of condemnation of Israeli “crime”s:
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  Shooting at unarmed demonstrators is illegal and any command allowing such an action is manifestly illegal. Yesterday, B’Tselem warned against relating to demonstration areas as combat zones and against shooting live fire at demonstrators. Armed soldiers and unarmed demonstrators are not “at war.” The illegal open fire regulations and the compliance with them are the reason for the number of dead and injured today in the Gaza Strip.
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  The protests were organized as “The Great March of Return,” a nonviolent gathering of Palestinian refugees who demand the right to return to their families’ homes inside Israel. Nearly 2 million Gazans are virtually imprisoned in the 140-square-mile strip, under blockade since 2007, after Hamas assumed political control of the area. The blockade extends to a 1000-foot “buffer zone” on the Gaza side of a fence from which Israel bars activity. Many observers are noting the caged condition of the Palestinians. Nora Barrows Friedman of EI:
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  The “totally democratic” “start-up nation” once again using caged Palestinians as laboratory subjects, killing and injuring them solely because they are demanding their right to leave this concentration camp and go home.
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