Palestinian kid using a simple mask and putting onions inside it to protect himself from the gas bombs thrown by Israeli occupation forces on the protesters at #Gaza borders. #GreatReturnMarch: image via Yousef @Joo_Gaza, 1:29 AM 31 March 2018

S&R - 108 - "Your best March shot" - #01 | by Fabian Schreyer // shootingcandid

Untitled [Purim ceremony, Jerusalem]: photo by Fabian Schreyer // shootingcandid, 2 March 2018

Friday noon prayers took place in the Malka area east of Gaza city with the presence of Palestinian political leaders, including Hamas' Ismail: photo by Haniya Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

Gaza: Refugees call for right of return in mass protests: Thousands in Gaza Strip attend mass demonstration calling for the return of Palestinian refugees.: Hosam Salem, Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

Israeli forces have killed at least 15 Palestinians and wounded more than 1,000 others during a mass protest near the Gaza Strip's eastern border.

Thousands attended Friday's protest, dubbed the Great March of Return, which was organised by several Palestinian civil society organisations and backed by all of political factions.

The protest marked the 42nd anniversary of Land Day - on March 30, 1976, six unarmed Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli forces during protests against the Israeli government's decision to expropriate massive tracts of Palestinian land.

Protesters said the main message of the march was to call for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Tents were also set up on five different points along the border, a move kicking off six weeks of a sit-in demonstration leading up to the 70th anniversary of the Nakba on May 15.

A man tries to put out the smoke from a tear gas canister fired by the Israeli army at Palestinian demonstrators.: photo by Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

More than 1,000 demonstrators were wounded by Israeli snipers during the protest: photo by Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

The march was called for by civil society organisations who stressed that it should be a peaceful protest.: photo by Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

Some 70 percent of the Gaza Strip's population are refugees from areas taken over by Zionist armed groups in 1948.: photo by Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

Israeli soldiers and an army observation tower seen in the distance across from the Gaza border with Israel, east of Gaza City.: photo by Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

Some 80 percent of the Gaza Strip's population are dependent on humanitarian assistance, owing to a decade-long Israeli blockade.: photo by Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

Palestinians have set up tents along the border with Israel and will carry out a six-week sit-in demonstration leading up to the commemoration of the 1948 Nakba.: photo by Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

A family sits in front of their tent east of Gaza City. They have hung up signs of the names of their original villages to which they hope to return.: photo by Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

Many of the 1.3 million Palestinians who live in refugee camps throughout the Gaza Strip hail from villages and towns just across the border with Israel.: photo by Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

Protesters in Gaza gathered in five different spots along the border, originally positioned about 700 metres away from the fence.: photo by Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

A makeshift field clinic to treat those wounded during the protest.: photo by Hosam Salem/Al Jazeera, 30 March 2018

Last picture of the Palestinian youth Abd AlFatah before the Israeli Zionists bastards snipers shot him in the head directly and killed him in cold blood. #GreatReturnMarch: image via Yousef @Joo_Gaza, 1:29 AM 31 March 2018

Summary of the #GreatReturnMarch in #Gaza strip during the peaceful protests at #Gaza borders Friday Yesterday. The Israeli Zionists did this: 20 young men killed 500 young men legs amputated 1800 injuries by the direct fires from Israeli snipers.: image via Yousef @Joo_Gaza, 12:09 AM 31 March 2018

As a witness who took part yesterday in the #GreatReturnMarch at #Gaza borders yesterday, I observed that the Israeli Zionists soldiers were targeting the Palestinian young men and women directly and shooting them in the head killing them in cold blood, we were unarmed and just holding flags: image via Yousef @Joo_Gaza, 11:52 PM 30 March 2018 imageimage via Yousef @Joo_Gaza, 11:52 PM 30 March 2018

Horrifying that Israel has launched a deadly attack on peaceful protest in Gaza #GreatReturnMarch: image via CODEPINK @codepink, 10:20 AM 30 March 2018

An Israeli sniper today, they killed 14 Palestinians protesters at #Gaza borders, they are evil inhuman Zionists bastards. Go to hell. Free Palestine #GreatReturnMarch: image via Yousef @Joo_Gaza, 11:34 AM 30 March 2018

Israel has predictably begun killing unarmed demonstrators in the Great March of Return #GreatReturnMarch #FreePalestine: image via Mohammed Khan @sarah_nowha1234, 30 March 2018

I’m shocked the Israeli Zionists snipers were killing and murdering in cold blood the Palestinian youth at #Gaza borders today during the #GreatReturnMarch: image viia Yousef @Joo_Gaza, 30 March 2018

@ShehabAgencyEn: Injuries inflicted by Israeli occupation forces on the 'peaceful' #GreatReturnMarch along the eastern border fence of the #Gaza Strip: image via Shehab News @ShehabAgencyEn, 30 March 2018

Israeli soldiers shot across the border with Gaza on Friday as Palestinians gathered for demonstrations expected to last six weeks.: photo by Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse, 30 March 2018

Israeli soldiers shot across the border with Gaza on Friday as Palestinians gathered for demonstrations expected to last six weeks.: photo by Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse, 30 March 2018

Israeli Military Kills 15 Palestinians in Confrontations on Gaza Border: Isabel Kershner in Jerusalem and Abuheweila in Gaza, The New York Times, 30 March 2018

JERUSALEM — Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered along Gaza’s border with Israel on Friday to vent their pent-up frustration in a protest that quickly turned violent, with Israeli forces killing 15 at the border fence.

As many as 30,000 arrived early in the day at tent encampments on Gaza’s side of the fence to stage what was billed as the start of a peaceful, six-week sit-in. They were protesting against Israel’s longstanding blockade of the territory and in support of their claims to return to homes in what is now Israel.

But as some began hurling stones, tossing Molotov cocktails and rolling burning tires at the fence, the Israelis responded with tear gas and gunfire. The Israelis said they also exchanged fire with two gunmen across the fence and fired at two others who tried to infiltrate into Israel.

Mohammad Obaid, an 18-year-old protester, said that holding a Palestinian flag in one hand and a rock in the other would be enough to get him killed by an Israeli soldier.

“We can bring back our lands with the power of guns and weapons, not with a march, a stone or a knife,” he said after the violence erupted.

Friday’s flare-up, ignited by isolation and economic deprivation, was the worst in years in the small Mediterranean enclave. In recent years, neighboring Egypt has joined Israel in the blockade, and the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank, has imposed sanctions. With the territory’s economy collapsing, fears of an explosive backlash have mounted.

In December, some Palestinian leaders had called for mass protests when the United States declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel and said it planned to move the American Embassy there. Such demonstrations never materialized.

Protesters carrying a wounded man near the Gaza Strip border with Israel on Friday.: photo Khalil Hamra/Associated Press, 30 March 2018

Protesters carrying a wounded man near the Gaza Strip border with Israel on Friday.: photo Khalil Hamra/Associated Press, 30 March 2018

Instead, it was a call to protest over the most sensitive issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — the land itself — that brought Palestinians out in huge numbers on Friday. And the question, as always, was whether confrontations would spread or escalate.

The Palestinians are pressing demands to return to lands that became Israel 70 years ago. A majority of Gaza’s two million residents are either refugees of the 1948 war that broke out over Israel’s creation, or descendants of those refugees.

Israel’s blockade of Gaza, which it describes as a security imperative, is more than decade old and restricts the movement of people and goods in and out of the Palestinian territory.

The protest came at a particularly charged time, as Jews prepared for the start of the Passover holiday on Friday evening, and as Palestinians observed Land Day. The day commemorates the events of March 30, 1976, when Israeli security forces shot and killed six Arab citizens of Israel during protests over the government’s expropriation of Arab-owned land in northern Israel.

Muslims at Friday Prayer at one of the tent cities set up for the demonstrations.: photo by Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse, 30 March 2018

Muslims at Friday Prayer at one of the tent cities set up for the demonstrations.: photo by Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse, 30 March 2018

The Palestinian organizers of the protest bused men, women and children to tent encampments that popped up in recent days about 700 yards from the border with Israel. They intended for the six-week campaign to culminate in a mass march toward Israel, putting Israeli officials on edge.

Even before the protests started, Israel began a campaign to hold the Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, for any violence. The country’s hard-line defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, warned Gazans to keep away from the border in a post on Twitter in Arabic.

“The Hamas leadership is risking your lives,” he wrote. “I advise you to get on with your normal everyday lives and not to participate in the provocation.”’

Those tensions were also fed in recent weeks by Palestinian militants planting explosives along the border, with some cutting through the fence. Armed with knives and grenades, they set fire to Israeli military equipment — apparently testing Israeli preparedness and worrying local communities.

Relatives of Omar Samour, a 27-year-old Palestinian farmer who was killed by Israeli tank fire, mourning on Friday.: photo by Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse, 30 March 2018

Relatives of Omar Samour, a 27-year-old Palestinian farmer who was killed by Israeli tank fire, mourning on Friday.: photo by Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse, 30 March 2018

Israel had almost doubled its forces along the border, deploying snipers, special units and drones, and warning that it would act to prevent any breach of the border fence. B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, had warned that any shoot-to-kill policy against unarmed demonstrators would be illegal unless soldiers’ lives were threatened.

Most of the protesters in the tent encampments remained well away from the border fence and did not participate in the violence.

After the violence began, the Israelis declared the area surrounding Gaza a closed military zone, and said they had responded with riot-control methods and had fired toward the “main instigators.” The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza put the number of deaths at 15; the Israeli military said it was not able to verify the number.

The idea for border encampments was initiated by a Gazan social-media activist, Ahmed Abu Artema, a political independent. It was quickly adopted by Hamas, which promoted the protest on its social media platforms and urged Palestinians to participate.

Setting up a large tent in preparation for the demonstrations on Thursday.: photo by Adel Hana/Associated Press, 28 March 2018

Setting up a large tent in preparation for the demonstrations on Thursday.: photo by Adel Hana/Associated Press, 28 March 2018

“Our will in achieving the actual return to our lands is more powerful than jet fighters and a gun,” Mr. Abu Artema said by phone on Friday as he was on his way to the protest.

“This march is rightful and will not be used and exploited for political agendas.”

Before the main confrontation broke out, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that a Palestinian man, a farmer, was killed near the border zone early Friday by Israeli artillery fire — one of the 15 it reported dead later in the day, along with some 1,000 injured. The Israeli military’s account said one of its tanks had fired on two Palestinians who approached the border and were “acting suspiciously.”

“We are raising the flags of peace and have nothing to harm the enemy,” said Hamed Jundiya, 63, an educational supervisor who erected his tent a few hundred yards from the border fence. Gazans are desperate, he said, “living without work, electricity and open borders.”

The peak of the Gaza protest was supposed to take place on May 15, when Palestinians commemorate what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, the anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence and the 1948 war in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes through flight and expulsion.

Palestinians are protesting the more than a decade-long economic blockade of Gaza by Israel, and to demand a right of return for Palestinian refugees to the lands that became Israel 70 years ago.: photo by Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse, 29 March 2018

This year, May 15 is expected to be particularly sensitive. It comes a day after the expected move of the United States Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, a step that has provoked international criticism and Palestinian outrage. It also coincides with the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month.

Organizers of the border protest had hoped to create an almost festival-like atmosphere to attract families, setting up portable washrooms and providing free food, water and Wi-Fi. But tensions in Gaza had been building for weeks.

Friday’s protest also fed on Palestinian anger over the failing reconciliation process between Hamas and Fatah, the rival, mainstream movement led by Mahmoud Abbas, whose Western-backed Palestinian Authority holds sway in parts of the West Bank.

Mr. Abbas, whose forces were routed from Gaza during factional violence in 2007, has vowed to tighten economic sanctions on the enclave, where most of the population lives in poverty and lacks such basics as regular electricity.

Mr. Abbas declared a national day of mourning on Saturday.

Israel has fought three wars in Gaza over the past decade and has invested heavily in combating the threat posed by rockets fired by Hamas and other militant groups, and from tunnels crossing under the border.