PALESTINIANS PROTEST AT GAZA BORDER FENCE (REPORT)
--SUPERS--\nFriday\nGaza\n\nIan Lee\nCNN International Correspondent\n\nMarch 30, 2018\n\n --LEAD IN--\nVIOLENCE IS ERUPTING IN GAZA.\nWITH PALESTINIAN OFFICIALS REPORTING SEVERAL PEOPLE DEAD, AND HUNDREDS INJURED IN CLASHES.\nTHIS AS PALESTINIANS LAUNCH THEIR ANNUAL PROTEST DEMANDING THE RIGHT TO RETURN TO LAND NOW INSIDE ISRAEL.\nORGANIZERS SAY THE PROTEST WILL GO ON.. FOR THE NEXT SIX WEEKS.\nCNN'S IAN LEE FILED THIS REPORT FROM GAZA .\n\n --REPORTER LOOKLIVE--\nIan Lee, Gaza: "Well the tensions have subsided for now but let me just give you an idea of what we saw over the course of a day. Down there, you see the flashing lights. Those are where the ambulances have been positioned all day about 100, 200 meters past that is the border between Gaza and Israel and just on the other side Israeli soldiers are positioned. Earlier in the day, we saw thousands of people gathered here going towards that border fence. First the Israeli military responded with tear gas and then we saw live rounds and the casualties mounted as you said. Now there has been a number of people killed over a thousand people injured in the confrontation between the two sides. You know we've seen the Palestinians throwing rocks with slingshots across at the Israeli soldiers and then the Israeli soldiers respond. But Israel has said that they are not going to allow any violations of what they say is their sovereignty, anyone getting to that border or trying to cross the border. But that is has been the goal of some people we've talked to they say the goal is to try to get there, try to cross it they say they want to return to the lands that they say they lost in the 1948 war. So this tension though is expected to last for the next six weeks all the way up to May 15th when the Palestinians commemorated the 1948 war."\n\n ----CNN INFORMATION-----\n GAZA (CNN) -- At least 12 Palestinians were killed and more than a thousand injured in Gaza on Friday during demonstrations against Israeli land confiscations, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.\n Around 1,100 people were wounded, according to the Health Ministry, as protesters marched toward a fence that separates Gaza from Israel on the first day of demonstrations scheduled to take place over six weeks. The dead included one 16-year-old, the ministry said.\n In northern Gaza, CNN witnessed at least two dozen people being taken away by ambulances in the span of half an hour. Injuries varied from rubber bullets, tear gas and live rounds fired by the Israeli military. The majority were young men -- one woman was among the injured.\n\n A Palestinian Red Crescent spokesman in Gaza told CNN that 355 injuries were from live bullets and included serious wounds to the head, abdomen and back. The Red Crescent had set up a field hospital in eastern Gaza and was setting up a second hospital in nearby east Jabalia. \n Tens of thousands of Palestinian protesters marched in Gaza along the fence, with smaller groups taking to the streets in the West Bank and Israel Friday in what is being called the March of Return.\n The protest coincides with Palestinian Land Day, which commemorates the confiscation of Palestinian-owned land in Israel in 1976. Six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed protesting the seizures at the time.\n Prior to Friday's protest, organizers said the march would be nonviolent, but warned of possible military fire from Israeli forces.\n The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that thousands of Palestinians were "rioting throughout the Gaza Strip, rolling burning tires and hurling stones at the security fence and at IDF troops, who are responding with riot dispersal means and firing towards main instigators."\n\n The IDF is "prepared to respond to the violent riots planned throughout the Gaza Strip if needed," the statement added.\n An Israeli official told CNN that two of those killed on Friday were members of Hamas, the political and militant group that controls Gaza. Israeli Air Force fighter jets also targeted three Hamas sites after an alleged shooting attack in northern Gaza was thwarted, according to an IDF statement\n In a tweet earlier Friday, Israel Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned Gaza residents that Hamas is "risking your lives." He added that anyone who approached the border was "endangering his life."\n A Palestinian farmer in Gaza named Omar Wahid Samur was killed and another injured by the Israeli military early Friday morning ahead of the protests, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reported.\n\n Commenting on the incident, the IDF said that an Israeli tank had fired on two suspects who had approached the security fence on the southern Gaza Strip and were "operating suspiciously." The IDF said it was aware of reports of casualties.\n\n Tent cities\n\n Tent cities have been set up to host the marches, which are expected to continue through May 15 when Palestinians mark the anniversary of the "Nakba" ("Catastrophe"), the day after Israel declared independence in 1948. Roughly 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes during the Arab-Israeli war.\n Today, approximately 1.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza are registered refugees, according to the United Nations.\n The US will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem around May 14, the 70th anniversary of Israel's declaration of independence. US President Donald Trump's controversial decision to relocate the embassy and recognize the contested city as Israel's capital was slammed by most of the international community and has galvanized Palestinian protests against Israel.\n\n The Trump administration said the decision was a "recognition of simple reality" and claimed it was not meant to prejudge final-status negotiations about the city's final borders, although Trump later said he had taken Jerusalem "off the table" when it came to any future peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.\n Fatah chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the embassy move disqualified the US as a peace-broker in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has boycotted American officials while seeking to improve ties with Hamas officials in Gaza.\n\n --KEYWORD TAGS--\nGAZA UNREST PALESTINIANS\n\n