Massive anti-Israel Palestinian rallies may lead to military confrontation
In the Gaza Strip, preparations are underway for a massive anti-Israel rally scheduled on Friday along the border fence with Israel, the first to involve all Palestinian factions including the Islamic Hamas movement.
The Great March of Return, which will last until May 15, coincides with Israel’s Independence Day and the Palestinian Day of the Nakba, or catastrophe. It is organized by a joint Palestinian committee, which comprises Palestinian political factions, rights groups, youth and public sectors and organizations. In preparations for the march, tents were erected hundreds of meters away from the fence to embrace large crowds.
Organizers said the main goal of the march is to remind the world of the Palestinian refugees’ right to return to the home they were forced to leave in 1948, as well as defying a tight Israeli blockade imposed on the coastal enclave since 2007 when Hamas violently seized control of Gaza after routing forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority.
Organizers have built up little mounds of sand before the tents in six areas from the southern to the northern Gaza Strip, 700 meters from the fence, as protection for the participants from any Israeli army gunfire.
Gaza’s 2 million residents have been urged to take part in Gaza’s largest-ever anti-Israel peaceful rally.
Friday, the day the rally kicks off, coincides with the Palestinian Land Day, an annual occasion marked by the Palestinians since 1976 to protest the Israeli confiscation of Palestinian lands.“The march of return aims to emphasize adherence to Palestinian rights, with right to return as their priority,” said Islamic Jihad leader Khaled alBatsh.
Batsh explained that specialized committees formed by the factions and civil society organizations will work to ensure the success of the march and its objectives.
On the official Facebook page of the rally, organizers said the march is going to be a massive peaceful event that will be observed in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.
Mohammed Faraj al-Ghoul, head of the legal committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that the rally is a legal tool for Palestinians to obtain their right of return.
He added that the march represents a popular Palestinian response to the so-called US “deal of the century” and Washington’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “It is a practical move to confront the attempts to eliminate the Palestinian cause,” he stressed.
US President Donald Trump is racing against time to firm up his initiative which aims at ending the prolonged PalestinianIsraeli conflict. Trump’s plan was not welcomed by the Palestinian Authority, which rejected the plan after the US president recognized the disputed city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December last year.
Palestinians now seek an international multilateral mechanism to overlook the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, stalled since 2014 and once sponsored by the US.
Palestinian observers have raised concerns of a military escalation in Gaza once the rally is violently targeted by Israel.
Adnan Abu Amer, a Gaza-based political observer, warned that the issue of the march of return occupied Israeli news headlines. “The Israeli press published the positions of Israeli army generals regarding the situation in Gaza as some called for a military strike against Hamas, while others preferred providing practical solutions to the humanitarian crisis in the territory,” he said.
The expert explained that Israeli estimations highlight the possibility that Palestinian demonstrators will approach the Israeli crossings with Gaza, which may lead Israeli army snipers to fire at them, causing a large number of victims. “Thus Palestinian factions will fire missiles on Israel in response, which may cause a new military confrontation,” he said.
In the past 10 years, Israel and the Hamas movement have been engaged in three major wars that claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis.
Days before the rally, the Hamas armed wing Qassam Brigades staged defensive drills in Gaza. Hundreds of Qassam militants, carrying light machine guns, were deployed on main streets over the past two days across the Gaza Strip.
Explosions were heard in different parts of the coastal enclave, while tank-like military vehicles were also observed, in addition to firing a number of missiles into the sea.
The return rally comes amid a deep stalemate in the process of national Palestinian reconciliation, with Hamas and Fatah rivals trading accusations over the deterioration of the Egyptian-mediated unity talks.
Akaram Attallah, a Palestinian political observer from Gaza, said neither negotiation nor armed conflicts have resulted in any good outcomes for the Palestinian cause.
“The only remaining way for Palestinians to get their rights is holding such mass rallies,” Atallah told Xinhua. “What is really important is to keep these rallies peaceful,” he said.