Alaa Nizar Ayesh Hamdan

October 4, 2019: Alaa Nizar Ayesh Hamdan, 28, was killed by Israeli soldiers in Abu Safiyya area, east of Jabalia town, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, after the army attacked non-violent protesters in different parts of the coastal region, wounding 57, including 18 who were shot with live ammunition.

The Palestinian protest organizers called this Friday’s March of Return the “Friday of 78 Children”, in honor of the 78 children killed by Israeli forces since the weekly protest marches began in March of 2018.

Palestinian medical sources reported that Alaa Nizar Ayesh Hamdan, 28, was shot and killed by the soldiers in a protest east of Jabalia town in the northern Gaza Strip while participating in the March of Return protest. He was taken to the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, where he was declared dead.

In addition to Hamdan, Israeli forces shot 18 Palestinian protesters with live ammunition, along the eastern parts of the Gaza Strip, several of whom had critical injuries.

39 Palestinians suffered from other injuries inflicted by the Israeli military, including being hit with so-called ‘less-lethal’ weaponry, and reactions to tear gas resulting in hospitalization.

The soldiers stationed in military towers and behind earth mounds along the separation fence east of the Gaza Strip fired live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas canisters at the participants, causing dozens of protesters to suffer from tear gas inhalation.

Organizers of the weekly Great March of Return in Gaza say that the purpose of the protests are to condemn the unjust siege imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2007, and to call for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their cities and villages from which they were displaced by Israeli forces in 1948 and 1967.

In a statement in advance of Friday’s protest marches, the organizers wrote, “reconciliation is the choice of our people,” adding that the Friday protest was in honor of the Palestinian victims of the occupation, noting, in particular, the cases of “Mohammed Al-Durra, Fares Odeh, Fares Sersawi, Yasser Abu Naja and Mohammed Abu Khdair.”

They called on Arab and Islamic countries to shoulder their responsibilities in ending and lifting the unjust siege on the Gaza Strip, in order to enable the Palestinian people to exercise their right to work, trade, travel and travel without restrictions. The statement added that the continuation of the siege and closure is an ongoing aggression against the Palestinian people. Alaa was from Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza. Source: IMEMC