GAZA: Israeli aircraft hit four Hamas targets in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday in response to gunfire from the Gaza Strip, but weeks of deadly mass protests and clashes along the border may be reaching an end as Ramadan begins.
Young men filled sandbags to prepare for future protests at encampments along Gaza’s Israeli border, though tents were mostly empty as Palestinians joined Muslims around the world observing the daylight fast at the start of Ramadhan.
After the bloodiest day for Palestinians in years on Monday, when 60 were killed by Israeli gunfire during mass demonstrations that Israel said included attempts to breach its frontier fence, calm and a heat wave descended on the area.
Organisers of the protests that began on March 30 set Friday as a day to honour the dead and urged Gazans to flock again to the tent cities.
But Ramadhan traditions — prayer, family visits and feasts — seemed to keep crowds away during the hot hours.
At one encampment, about 70 young men filled sandbags in anticipation of people returning to the protest sites.
“We are making a sand barrier so people can feel a bit safer,” one of the men said, declining to give his name.
Ramadhan is usually a time of celebration, but after dozens of funerals during the week the mood was bleak in Gaza.
The organising committee for the demonstrations said Muslims’ abstinence from food and drink during the hot mornings and afternoons of Ramadan would be taken into account in further protests.
The “March of Return” demonstrations advocate the return of Palestinians to lands lost to Israel during its founding in 1948, and are also intended to draw attention to harsh conditions in Gaza, where the economy has collapsed under an Israeli blockade since 2007.
Israel says Hamas is behind the protests, deliberately provoking violence for propaganda aims.
Hamas says the demonstrations are a popular outpouring of anger, and Israel carried out a “massacre” in response.
Dawoud Shehab, a member of the organising committee, said activities at the encampments would get under way only in the late afternoon when temperatures drop. Late-night prayers will also be held there, he said.
Organisers said the protest would stretch into June.
Violence along the border has been comparatively limited over the past two days, with no casualties reported by either side since Tuesday, when two Palestinians were killed while dozens of others were buried.
Early on Thursday, Israeli aircraft hit four Hamas targets in the northern Gaza Strip. — Reuters
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