RAMALLAH, At least seven Palestinians were on Friday killed and hundreds others injured as Israeli occupation forces quelled rallies, including with lethal force, that set out to commemorate the Land Day across the occupied Palestinian territories, mainly in the Gaza Strip.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces opened fire at thousands of Palestinians who participated in the Great March of Return at many locations on Gaza-Israel border, killing at least six Palestinians and injuring about 356 others since Friday morning, said medical sources.
Human rights group Adalah denounced the Israeli army’s use of live fire as a brutal violation of the international legal obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and called for an investigation into the killings.
In the West Bank district of Nablus, at least six Palestinians were injured and others suffocated by teargas during clashes with Israeli occupation forces in the villages of Qusra, Kafr Qalil, and Beita to the south of Nablus city.
Similar protests also took place in many locations and points of friction across the occupied West Bank, including in Qalqilia, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Hebron.
Rallies also set off in many Arab towns on Israel, with a major rally in the town of Sakhnin in the Galilee region.
This year’s Land Day comes in the aftermath of widespread anger over US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which goes against the rights of the Palestinian people to an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
This year will also mark 70 years of the Palestinian catastrophe, the Nakba, and the forced displacement of 750,000 Palestinians, whose descendants now number millions living as refugees abroad or in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Land Day is of special significance to the Palestinians because it was the first time since 1948 that Palestinians in Israel organized a collective response to Israeli policies. It is marked not only by Palestinians within historical Palestine, but also by Palestinians all over the world.
Source: Palestine News and Info Agency
