Gaza City: At least six Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces on the Gaza border on Friday, as thousands of demonstrators burnt tyres to send towers of thick black smoke into the sky.
The deaths mean that 28 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli snipers since Gaza residents last week began the Great March of Return, a series of weekly border protests demanding the right to return to their ancestral homes in what is today Israel.
Around 20,000 Palestinians flocked to five protest sites along the border, according to the Israeli military. More than 1000 people were injured in clashes with Israeli troops, said the Palestinian health ministry, which is controlled by the Hamas militant group.
Demonstrators burned hundreds of rubber tyres all along the Israeli frontier, creating a wall of smoke which they hoped would blind Israeli marksmen. Israeli forces used fire hoses to try to put out the flames and large turbine fans to keep the noxious smoke from blowing into Israel.
The overwhelming majority of the protesters were unarmed and the small handful who did carry weapons were wielding small axes, knives, or heavy shears to try to cut through the Israel fence. The Daily Telegraph saw no firearms in the crowds.
Read the article by Raf Sanchez in The Sydney Morning Herald (from Telegraph, London).
[This piece of IOHO fake news we could not bring ourselves to publish the official caption going with the post’s featured image which says, “Palestinian protesters chant slogans next to burning tires during clashes with Israeli troops along Gaza’s border with Israel, east of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip.”
Black smoke from the tyres, set alight by people is apparently 13 000 times more toxic than emissions from a coal-fired power plant, according to research done by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
The liquids and solids left behind after the tyres have been burnt can pollute the soil, surface water and ground water, and it’s possible that the pollutants can settle on pasture, food crops and in water, and accumulate in animal tissues, including meat, fish and eggs.
Under these conditions one has to question whether the Palestinian protesters could have the lungs left for chanting.]