Gazans March for the Right to Return to Their Homes, 2018-2019

From 30 March 2018 to 26 December 2019, Gazans protested at the Israeli border every Friday for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and land that they had been displaced from since 1948. This series of demonstrations is known now as the “Great March of Return.”

March of 2018 marked nearly 70 years since the founding of Israel and the Nakba in May of 1948. The Nakba, which translates from Arabic to “catastrophe,” is what Palestinians call the campaign for Israeli independence in which Zionist militias displaced over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes and land. March 2018 also marked almost eleven years since the beginning of the total land, sea, and air campaign imposed by Israel on the Gaza strip in June 2007. Under Israel’s blockade, movement of people, food, and goods was severely restricted around all borders of Gaza, including 6 nautical miles off the coast into the Mediterranean Sea. The United Nations had said that by conducting this blockade, Israel is committing collective punishment, which is a violation of international law and a human rights violation. Almost 70% of the population of Gaza lived as registered refugees. These refugees were either displaced by the Nakba in 1948, or are the descendants of those who were directly displaced. By preventing these refugees from returning to their original homes that now exist on Israeli land, the Israeli government was also violating the United Nations Resolution 194 of the right “to return to their homes and live at peace” for refugees of the Nakba. 

This particular idea for large-scale nonviolent protests in Gaza was first suggested by the Palestinian journalist and poet ​​Ahmed Abu Artema via a Facebook post on 7 January 2018. With his post, Abu Artema initiated the idea that thousands of Palestinians should peacefully gather at the fence on Israel’s border and attempt to return to their family homes from before the 1948 Nakba. After the idea was initiated, a national “Return Committee” was formed through a grassroots effort to help plan and execute the protests. This national committee was made up of twelve sub-committees that all helped to plan and organize different parts of the marches. The committee had groups from many different parts of Gazan society, including cultural and social organizations, women’s groups, and student groups. There were also a number of different political parties that represented within this committee, including the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah, Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Although many of these parties also have armed sections, those parts of the parties were not represented in the committee. One thing that all the represented groups immediately agreed on as the Return Committee was that the demonstrations should be fully peaceful. The coalition of Palestinian National and Islamic Forces officially announced the formation of the “Higher National Committee for the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege” on 7 March 2018. 

The result of this call to action from Abu Artema and the organization of the Return Committee was planned weekly Friday marches at the border of Gaza and Israel all up and down the Gaza strip. The first of these marches took place on 30 March 2018, which was intentionally held on that date to commemorate the 42nd anniversary of Land Day. Land Day is a remembrance of 30 March 1976, when Israeli forces killed six unarmed Palestinian citizens of Israel as they were protesting the Israeli government’s recent expropriation of large amounts of Palestinian-owned land.

On Friday, 30 March 2018, the “Great Return March” began with the main call to demand the right to return of Palestinian refugees. In addition to this demand, the protesters also called for an end to the almost eleven year blockade Israel had enforced on Gaza, and they also expressed discontent with United States’ President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This first march was known to be the beginning of a six-week protest that would culminate with a demonstration on 14 May 2018, the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Nakba. 

At this first Great Return March on 30 March, protesters rallied at five different points along the Gaza border with Israel, with each point being in a different Gazan district. These points included East Rafah; Khuza’a, Khan Younis; East Bureij; Malaka Roundabout; and Abu Safiya, East Jabalia. At each point, protesters mostly stood 500 to 700 meters away from the fence that stood at Gaza’s border with Israel, and chanted and shouted at the Israeli forces on the other side. At this distance, demonstrators also began to set up tents and stage sit-ins at these five locations along the border, where they planned to remain until 15 May. Each tent was marked with the name of a different town or city that the inhabitants of the tent would be returning to once the demand of return was met. Across all of the protest sites, there was estimated to be between 20,000 and 30,000 Palestinians. Although most protesters stayed further from the border fence, some protesters did move closer and attempt to cross the fence into Israel. To make this cross, the fence would need to come down, so as protesters reached the fence some would cut pieces from it. The protesters that approached the fence would often take a piece from it and then attempt to return back to the encampments with the pieces. Other protesters began to throw things such as rocks and flaming objects, and also rolled burning tires, at the border fence. Even as some protesters began to use these more violent tactics, the leaders of the protests repeatedly emphasized the nonviolent mission of the protests. Burning tires also were used to create a large smoke cover for protesters to approach the fence at the border and attempt to dismantle sections of it. To manage this smoke, the IDF brought in large industrial fans and tried to disperse it, as well as bringing in large water cannons to douse the fires in.

Within the encampments, protesters set up to provide for everyone’s needs. Venders would sell food and drink, and occasionally free food would arrive by delivery. There were spaces to worship for religious protesters, as well as tents made to host Gaza journalists. In addition to these essentials, protesters also created spaces to play sports, hear poetry readings, and see musical performances. 

Since organizers announced the march publicly in an attempt to gain larger support for the protests, the Israeli Defence Forces also had more time to prepare for the actions of the march. To prepare for the protests, the IDF doubled the number of troops stationed along the border, and deployed drones, sharpshooters, and elite units. As soon as some protesters moved closer to the border, and began to throw objects at the fence, the IDF declared within 300 meters of the border to be a military zone. With the declaration of a military zone, the IDF used that as reason to attack any protester who approached the fence. The standing IDF procedure was for soldiers to kill any armed Palestinian within 300 meters of the border, and any unarmed Palestinian within 100 meters of the border. Israeli forces hit protesters with live ammunition, rubber bullets, and tear gas. By the end of the first day of protesting, 18 Gazans were killed by the Israeli military’s response, and over 700 were injured. 

After the first Friday 30 March, protesters continued the encampments steadily, but they also held more active demonstrations every Friday. Each Friday protest was given a slightly different focus or name by the Return Committee. The 13 April 2018 was declared Flag Day. On this Friday, protesters mass printed Israeli flags that were crossed out in red, and burned and ran over Israeli flags as they raised Palestinian flags. There was also a large memorial for the journalist Yasser Murtaja in Khan Younis. Memorials, vigils, and mourning actions were another regular occurrence at each Friday protest as protesters continued to be killed by the IDF throughout the marches.

The 20 April 2018 was the “Women’s March of Gaza” to pay respects to the women that had been very actively involved in many parts of the protests. Some women helped around the encampments and treated the injured, while others went to the front lines of the border. These women on the front lines of protests would stand even in front of most men, as activists believed that the IDF was less likely to shoot women. This involvement of women was seen as unifying for Palestinians, and also was used as a tool to show the non-violence of the movement.

Despite the fact that these protests were popularly organized with only some Hamas involvement, Hamas tried to use the media to spin the story that it was the largest organizer behind the protests. As Hamas advertised itself as the main organizer behind the marches, it also would try to emphasize the nonviolence of the protests to the press to gain some international sympathy as not just a militant group. One example of this was a press conference Hamas held in early April 2018 where its political leader Ismail Haniya spoke about Hamas’ role in the marches in front of pictures of Dr. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela. 

In April 2018, protesters began to fly incendiary kites and attach burning rags to balloons to fly them over the Israeli fence. A few of these made it over the fence onto Israeli land, and burned some crops on the land. 

The Committee had originally planned that the marches were to accumulate on the 14 and 15 of May 2018. The 14 May 2018 was the day that the United States government was going to officially move the United States embassy to Jerusalem. Anticipating a large protest on 14 May, the IDF put out information on 13 May that Hamas was going to carry out a massacre in Israel on the 14. This proved inaccurate, as on 14 May protesters held another large nonviolent action at the established protest points along the Israeli border in Gaza. Hamas also called for a general strike on Monday, 14 May. Many abided by the strike, although the main focus of the day was still the 30,000 protesters at the Israeli border. On this day alone the IDF shot over 1100 Gazan protesters, and 60 protesters were killed. Roughly 20 of these deaths, including a paramedic and two children, were from a forty minute bout of tank and gunfire from the IDF after someone a distance away from the protesters shot a rifle at IDF soldiers at the border. At the protest site in Burejj, two protesters went up to the fence, crossed the border and set an object aflame on the Israeli side of the border as other protesters chanted and burned tires. After these large protests on 14 May, the protests on Nakba Day, 15 May, were not as large. However, there were some solidarity protests conducted by Israeli Palestinians in Umm el-Fahm, Majd al-Krum, and in the Negev on the evening of the 15th. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon also led some solidarity protests on the same evening. 

After the demonstrations on 14 and 15 May, the Committee announced that the protests would be continuing until the demands of return were met. This was sustained for a short time, with demonstrations on 8 June being held to mark the anniversary of the Six-Day War of 1967, where Israel invaded all of the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula, and parts of Lebanon. 8 June also commemorated Al-Quds Day, which is annually on the last Friday of the holiday of Ramadan to advocate for freedom for Palestinians and the realization of a Palestinian state. This march was known as the “One-Million March for Jerusalem.” 

As protests continued over the summer, there was an increased use of tactics such as incendiary kites being flown over the border into Israel. Even as this increased, the Committee and leaders of the marches continued to maintain that the marches and any protests were supposed to be nonviolent.

On 21 July, the IDF confirmed that one Israeli soldier had been killed by gunfire allegedly fired by Hamas. However, other records attest that the gunman had been unaffiliated with any group or the marchers. Although this date corresponded with a Friday that protesters held marches, the soldier was shot outside of protest sites. Israel responded by hitting over 60 Hamas targets with airstrikes. The strikes killed four Gazans, three of whom were allegedly members of Hamas. Despite any affiliations, the killing of militants while they are not actively participating in militant duties is still in violation of international law. 

On 12 October 2018, there was a small group of demonstrators that attempted to cross the border. They were immediately shot at by IDF soldiers as they got close to the fence. When one of them made it across and refused to retreat, he was shot at close range by the IDF. 

After the demonstrations on 14 and 15 May, despite the Committee’s announcement of the continuation of the protests, the scale of the demonstrations began to decline. There were sustained protests every Friday at each of the locations along the Gaza-Israel border, however, other than a few notable days, the scale of the protests drastically decreased. Throughout all of 2019, the protests continued as the goal the Committee had stated for the protesters was not realized. However, they were not as widely attended as they had been in 2018. On this looser timeline, the structure and collaborative nature of the Committee began to deteriorate as well, with tensions rising between different factions represented on the Committee. By the end of 2019, the Committee announced that the demonstrations would be happening only once per month instead of every Friday. After this announcement, attendance significantly dropped and the campaign was effectively over.  

By the time the Committee announced this change in demonstrations and the march was recognized by media and observers to be over, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that over 36,100 Palestinians were injured, with almost 8,800 of those injured being children, by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Border Police (IBP). Over 8,000 of those injured were hurt by live ammunition from these Israeli forces. Israeli forces also injured protesters by hitting them with tear gas canisters, spreading tear gas to be inhaled, and hitting them with rubber bullets. In addition to these injuries, 214 Palestinians were killed by the IDF, and 46 of those killed were children. 

The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Protests in Gaza concluded that Hamas was responsible for any protesters throwing dangerous objects towards the Israeli border as Hamas was the governing party of Gaza, as they failed to prevent incendiary objects from being thrown over the border. Although this failure was mentioned, the main focus of the press release by this UN Commission was the findings that individual members of the Israeli Security Forces could likely be found guilty of committing war crimes for their targeting of civilians in their attacks on protesters. The Commission was then tasked with interviewing victims and witnesses of these attacks to provide information to international justice centers. The Commission then called on Israel to investigate every protest-related killing, while simultaneously urging any protesters in Gaza to remain peaceful, and leading organizations to hold protesters accountable to that.