Great March of Return

Updated 2024-04-01

2019-11-30 Abby Martin: Gaza’s fight for freedom needs global solidarity     The Empire Files’ Abby Martin and Mike Prysner discuss their new documentary “Gaza Fights For Freedom,” a vivid account of the Great March of Return against the Israeli siege of Gaza, and the urgency of global solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/30/abby-martin-gazas-fight-for-freedom-needs-global-solidarity/

2019-03-30 No Choice but to Break Free: An Interview with Ahmed Abu Artema  (starts about 11^th question)  LS:   In your opinion, what’s the most misunderstood aspect, or perhaps even outright lie, about the Great March of Return, that is peddled by the Israeli state and Zionists, or accepted by the media in general? Is there anything you would like to correct for people that are witnessing these demonstrations and perhaps are listening to the wrong voices or narratives that surround them?

AA: We want people to know the reality and truth of what’s happening in Palestine. The reality is that Israel is in violation of international law and is committing human rights abuses, by making refugees out of upwards of five million Palestinians, by building walls that have transformed our lives into open-air prisons. The West Bank is filled with walls and checkpoints that disconnect people from each other and the Gaza Strip is a prison, a true prison. The Gaza Strip is very small, you can get from one end to the other in an hour, it’s very small. These people, what Israel is doing to them and against them is just because they are Palestinian. Because they are ethno-nationalist racists. We want people to know what’s really happening. Palestinians desire freedom. Palestinians desire dignity. Palestinians desire human rights. We don’t want walls. It doesn’t make sense that in the 21st century, there are humans that are caged in by walls and can’t interact with each other. Israel has put up walls to cage in millions of people. We want these walls to come down. We want Israel, we want people to hold Israel accountable, to follow international law. We want Palestinian refugees to have the Right of Return and to have liberation. And ultimately, to have everyone live together, Israelis and Palestinians, with equal human rights.   LS: These are such important insights for the larger picture, for anyone who wants to support Palestinians. Is there anything in specific to the Great March of Return that you’d also like to dispel or want us to know? Perhaps they just don’t know, or perhaps Zionist voices are misrepresenting. What would you tell them to let them know with accuracy what is happening on the ground during the demonstrations?

AA: I want them to know that the Great March of Return movement is derived from the fact that the Palestinians have not forgotten where they came from, the homes from which they were forcibly removed and displaced 70 years ago, and that this hope and desire to return has not stopped and won’t die. No matter how many years and how many decades pass, the will and desire to return will not disappear. Why do they want to return? Simply put: without complicating it with any other factors, it’s their right. That’s first. Secondly, we want them to know: why have people been demonstrating for a full year? It is in response to Israeli violence. The Israeli state has murdered more than 200 peaceful protestors over the course of this year without them presenting any threat against Israeli forces, and they’ve injured over 25,000 demonstrators that haven’t threatened them in any way. Despite this, people continue to demonstrate. Why? Because the issue of Return is a cry for life. We have no choice but to break free from behind prison walls. Like Ghassan Kanafani asked, [in his story, “Men in the Sun,”] why didn’t the men bang on the walls while they were suffocating? Our people don’t want to die in silence, they want their cry to be heard around the world. Because they want to live. We want this cry, this scream, to get to our oppressors.

LS: Yes, like Kanafani said: “the Palestinian people prefer to die standing than to lose their cause”. You’d rather die in dignity, struggling, than on your knees, at the hands of the oppressor. It’s important that you feel they won’t bring you to your knees, that you will continue the struggle, defending yourselves, your rights.

AA: Yes, that’s right.

LS: The United States mainstream media outlets and the Israeli state often talk about or present the Great March of Return as the brainchild of Hamas and that Gazans are intent on breaking through the fence and pouring into Israel to kill Israelis, or that children are being used as human shields, etc. Can you tell us how it looks every week? How are the demonstrations organized? Are there leaders? What does a typical Friday look like?

AA: I want to first reply to the suggestion or rumor that Hamas is organizing these demonstrations. First of all, this is a deceptive trick, sold to the world. Secondly, this is really insulting to us, as a people – we’re not some robots that are controlled by a master.

LS: As though you don’t have your own thoughts or opinions…

AA: Exactly. We have thousands of people, men, women, children, elderly folks coming out. The first day we started I saw older folks with canes, people who can’t walk well, pass us younger, able-bodied people, walking a kilometer just so that they can participate in the demonstrations. The Great March of Return and the issue of Return are a collective choice and all Palestinians are participating, no matter their political affiliations. The Palestinian cause is a call for participation that allows us to collectively resist the Occupation from winning. Okay, all types of political affiliations are present – but it’s for the right of the Palestinian people. What about the right of Return? What about refugees? These are the things we’re all called to focus on when we fight for the Palestinian cause.

LS: Can you tell us more specifics about Friday demonstrations?

AA: There is a society, an organizing society, the National Society for the Right of Return and for Ending the Siege. This is a society that acts as an umbrella for all things of this nature for the Palestinians of Gaza, cultural and political. The society is the one that organizes every Friday, invites people to the demonstrations. The programs on Friday begin typically at noon. People come together in groups, and public gatherings, peaceful of course, and they sing national songs and put on performances.

The occupying forces are not in any danger, they’re not threatened in any way. Even if people get close to the fence, even if they engaged with the soldiers in chants, there’s no threat that’s being imposed on Israeli forces. They’re protected by fences, by their security detail, by heavily armored vehicles. So in this regard, people really are coming together in peaceful protest, but it’s the Occupation that is intent on making this violent and dragging them into a bloody event.

LS: How do you understand the role of women and girls in the Great March of Return every Friday?

AA: Women are actively engaged in this movement and there have also been many martyrs that are women as a result. If you remember Razzan Al Najjar, she died for her Right to Return, she was a woman who had a very active role in the demonstrations. Every Friday I see thousands of women actively engaging in the demonstrations; some of them have been murdered, others have been injured.

LS: The coverage and videos I have watched support what you’re saying – but I’m not sure what others have been watching! I think much of the mainstream media, by way of Islamophobic tropes, view everything through the lens of a Hamas obsession: e.g., Hamas oppresses women. This obsession literally blocks them from seeing reality in front of them, where we see and understand women as engaged in this movement as well.

AA: In the end, and maybe this is a bit outside our topic, but the Palestinian culture has its own beliefs and practices, just like any other culture does, a human right to maintain its cultural practices. But our cultural beliefs do not include oppressing women or restricting their freedom. Women are a central part of every facet of our culture, they have active roles. They are leaders in this movement, not just appendages or add-ons. And we all come together around this movement, and play various roles.

LS: This movement is a peaceful movement. You were in a documentary made by Al Jazeera, “Between Fire and Sea: the Man Behind Gaza’s Great Return March.” There’s a scene in it, you’re speaking to another man who says, paraphrasing, that you should respond to violence with violence. And you say to him, again paraphrasing, we can’t, we have to stay peaceful because remaining peaceful shows our strength. https://viewpointmag.com/2019/03/30/ahmed-abu-artema/

2019-03-29 ‘Shoot to maim’: How Israel created a generation on crutches in Gaza        Doctors tell MEE that Palestinian protesters’ crippling injuries, especially to lower limbs, were inflicted deliberately.  

Israeli snipers have intentionally maimed Palestinians protesting in Gaza over the past year, creating a generation of disabled youth and overwhelming the territory’s already crippled medical system, frontline doctors tell Middle East Eye.   According to a United Nations inquiry released this month, over 80 percent of the 6,106 protesters wounded in the first nine months of the Great March of Return were shot in the lower limbs.

Israeli soldiers intentionally shot civilians and may have committed war crimes in their heavy-handed response to the protests, which have been held regularly across Gaza since 30 March 2018, the report concluded.  Healthcare providers say the pattern of wounds shows that Israeli soldiers are purposefully shooting to maim protesters, most of whom are in their 20s and now require long-term medical care.    “The soldier knows exactly where he’s putting the bullet. This is not random. This is very intimate. This is very planned,” said Ghassan Abu Sitta, professor of surgery at the American University of Beirut (AUB), who treated injured protesters for three weeks at Gaza’s Al-Awda Hospital last May.      https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/shoot-maim-how-israel-created-generation-crutches-gaza

.

Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

.

Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World