Gaza demonstrations continue for 45th consecutive week

By Mohamed Majed

GAZA CITY, Palestine

For the 45th week in a row, Palestinians on Friday converged along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone to take part in ongoing rallies against Israel’s decades-long occupation.

In a statement, Gaza’s National Authority for Breaking the Siege urged the people of Gaza to take part in Friday’s demonstration, which was held under the banner, “Our prisoners [in Israeli jails] are not alone”.

According to estimates, some 6,000 Palestinians -- including numerous women and children -- are currently languishing in Israeli detention facilities.

Since Palestinians began holding rallies along the buffer zone in March of last year, more than 250 protesters have been killed -- and thousands more injured -- by Israeli army gunfire.

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

They also demand an end to Israel’s 12-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its roughly two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.