Today, tens of thousands of Palestinians have headed towards the Israeli fence in Gaza to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Great March of Return.
At the time of publication, two Palestinians had been killed, and many more wounded by Israeli fire.
March 30 also marks Palestinian Land Day, which commemorates a 1976 decision by the Israeli government to expropriate thousands of hectares of Arab-owned land in the Galilee region north of Israel.
One year ago, Palestinians in Gaza launched a series of weekly protests along the Israeli border, in which thousands of demonstrators have gathered every Friday to call for their rights, and an end to a grinding blockade imposed on the territory since 2007. However, after 52 weeks of regular protests, the situation in Gaza seems to have only worsened.
The Great March of Return was initially thought up by young Gazans with a vision to shift the dynamics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The idea was to gather hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, who would cross into Israel in a non-violent march, demanding their right of return to their ancestors’ homes and the right to live side by side with Israelis.
