Israel is shooting at protesters in Gaza again on Saturday, a day after Israeli forces shot dead at least 15 Palestinians.
Over 1,400 were also injured Friday by Israeli forces in Gaza, roughly half of whom were hit by live fire, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Thousands of protesters are attending funerals on Saturday.
“Medical facilities in Gaza, which have already been overstrained by the longstanding shortages of medical supplies, electricity, and fuel, are struggling to cope with the overwhelming number of casualties,” the ministry says.
Over two dozen protesters have already been injured in Saturday’s protests, Haaretz reports.
Friday was the first day of the “March of Great Return,” a six-week action slated to end on the day marking the “Nakba.” Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered at five spots along the Gaza-Israel border saying, “We are not here to fight; we are here to return to our lands.”
As the Guardian reports: “Israel said it has positioned snipers and responded to ‘rioting’ Palestinians with ‘dispersal means’ and ‘firing towards main instigators.’ It said the movement was a Hamas-orchestrated ploy and it was identifying ‘terror attacks under the camouflage of riots.'”
Israel-based human rights group B’Tselem—which noted that “Israeli forces have already been lethally shooting Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza for some time”—criticized such a characterization of the movement. Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, also noted that “Israeli allegations of violence by some protesters do not change the fact that using lethal force is banned by international law except to meet an imminent threat to life.”