For nearly six months now, Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have been staging weekly demonstrations at points along the border between Gaza and Israel—protests they call the “Great March of Return,” which demands that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to their lands in present-day Israel. Every Friday since March 30, large and small groups of protesters approach the border fence under the watch of Israeli soldiers on the other side. Every Friday, Palestinians set tires ablaze, fly Palestinian flags, and chant slogans. Sometimes they throw rocks, fly incendiary kites to set fields ablaze, or lob tear-gas canisters over the fence—and sometimes they attack the fence itself with bolt cutters and hatchets. Every Friday, Israeli soldiers respond with tear gas and rubber bullets—sometimes live ammunition—to disperse, warn, injure, or kill those who get too close to the fence. United Press International quotes the Gaza Health Ministry as saying that “more than 178 Palestinians have been killed since the protests began March 30.”
Photos: 25 Fridays of Protest in Gaza
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A picture taken on March 30, 2018, from the southern Israeli kibbutz of Nahal Oz, looking across the border into the Gaza Strip, shows Palestinians participating in a protest commemorating Land Day, with Israeli soldiers seen below in the foreground. #
Jack Guez / AFP / Getty -
Israeli security forces stand near the kibbutz Nir Oz, on the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip, as smoke billows from tires burning in the Palestinian village of Khuzaa on April 6, 2018. #
Menahem Kahana / AFP / Getty -
A picture taken on April 20, 2018, from the southern Israeli kibbutz of Nahal Oz shows Israeli soldiers placing concrete blocks while constructing a barrier along the border fence. #
Ahmad Gharabli / AFP / Getty -
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Click to view imagePalestinians gather around the body of the 15-year-old Mohammed Ibrahim Ayoub after he was shot and killed by Israeli security forces during clashes along the Israel–Gaza border on April 20, 2018. #
Abed Abu Riash / AFP / Getty -
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Relatives of the Palestinian Jabir Abu Mustafa, 40, who was killed at the Israel–Gaza border during protests, mourn during his funeral in Khan Yunis on May 12, 2018. #
Ibraheem Abu Mustafa / Reuters -
An unmanned aerial vehicle belonging to Israeli forces drops tear-gas canisters on Palestinian protesters during a protest organized to mark the 70th anniversary of Nakba, also known as the Day of the Catastrophe in 1948, and part of the ongoing "Great March of Return" protests at the border near Gaza's Shujaiyya neighborhood on May 15, 2018. #
Ali Jadallah / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
Palestinians prepare an incendiary device attached to a kite before trying to fly it over the border fence with Israel on the eastern outskirts of Jabalia on May 4, 2018. #
Mohammed Abed / AFP / Getty -
A burning field is seen near the Israeli kibbutz of Mefallesim, along the border with the Gaza Strip, on May 15, 2018, after it was ignited by incendiaries tied to kites flown by Palestinian protesters from across the border. #
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Palestinians attend the funeral ceremony of Razan Ashraf Najjar, 21, a female paramedic who was shot dead by Israeli forces while helping wounded demonstrators during protests in Khan Yunis the day before, in the Huzaa neighborhood of Khan Yunis on June 2, 2018. #
Mustafa Hassona / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
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Click to view imageHaitham Abu Sabla, a Palestinian protester, holds his bleeding head as gas pours from a tear-gas canister that lodged in his face after being fired during a demonstration east of Khan Yunis on June 8, 2018. Photos of Sabla's shocking injury spread worldwide online soon afterward. Sabla survived, but suffered serious damage to his upper jaw, teeth, and facial muscles, as well as extended intense exposure to the tear gas. #
Ashraf Amra / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
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The brothers of Sabri Ahmed Abu Khader mourn during his funeral in Gaza City on June 18, 2018. Sabri was killed by Israeli fire near the Gaza Strip's border, said the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. #
Mahmud Hams / AFP / Getty -
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The Palestinian student Mohammed Abu Hussain from Gaza, who lost his leg after being shot by an Israeli sniper during "Great March of Return" demonstrations, sits in a chair with his crutches in the playground of his school in Gaza City on September 3, 2018. #
Ali Jadallah / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
A man waving a Palestinian flag rides a horse on the 25th Friday of the "Great March of Return" demonstrations near the Israel–Gaza border, in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood, on September 14, 2018. #
Ali Jadallah / Anadolu Agency / Getty -
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