For 48th week, Gazans continue anti-occupation protests

By Mohamed Majed

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – For the 48th week in a row, Palestinians on Friday converged along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone to take part in ongoing rallies against Israel’s occupation and 12-year siege of the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, Gaza’s National Authority for Breaking the Siege urged the people of Gaza to take part in Friday’s demonstration.

The authority also noted the passage of 25 years since extremist Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinian worshippers in the Ibrahimi Mosque in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron (Al-Khalil).

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least three Palestinian protesters were injured on Friday by Israeli troops deployed near the buffer zone.

Since the demonstrations began in March of last year, more than 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army gunfire.

Demonstrators demand the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in historical Palestine from which they were driven from in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.

They also demand an end to Israel’s ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its roughly two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.