The Great March of Return

The Great March of Return demonstrations began on 30 March 2018, deliberately timed to coincide with Land Day , the annual commemoration of a 1976 protest against Israeli land expropriations during which six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed. On that day, tens of thousands of residents of the Gaza Strip , including men, women, and children from towns and refugee camps, gathered at tent encampments established along the Israeli-imposed perimeter fence. The early atmosphere was widely described as having a festival feel: families picnicked, vendors sold food, and youth performed dabke, projecting a spirit of communal solidarity and civil protest. Demonstrators carried Palestinian flags and placards asserting their right to return to homes and villages located only a few kilometers beyond the fence.

The idea for the Great March of Return emerged from a small group of independent activists, writers, and civil society figures in Gaza in early 2018. Among those most closely associated with its conception was Ahmed Abu Artema , a Gaza-based journalist and activist who publicly proposed a peaceful march toward the fence to reclaim the right of return. (Abu Artema himself was seriously injured by Israeli sniper fire on 6 April 2018. He was shot in the leg and sustained long-term injury.) The proposal circulated widely on social media and quickly resonated with a population exhausted by blockade, political fragmentation, and diplomatic stagnation. As in earlier Palestinian uprisings, particularly the First Intifada of 1987, the initiative arose from grassroots networks before being incorporated into factional coordinating structures.

In the weeks leading up to 30 March, a National Authority for the Great March of Return was formed, bringing together representatives of major Palestinian factions, including Hamas , Islamic Jihad , Fatah , leftist groups, and civil society actors. While Hamas provided logistical support and mobilization capacity, especially in transport and security at protest sites, the early framing of the march emphasized its civilian, popular, and nonpartisan character. The encampments established along the fence were organized as semi-permanent protest sites, complete with tents, cultural programming, and medical stations. Organizers deliberately structured the demonstrations as recurring weekly events (especially on Fridays) to sustain visibility while maintaining the rhetoric of peaceful resistance. This hybrid structure, combining grassroots initiative with factional coordination, allowed the Great March of Return to mobilize tens of thousands while retaining its image as a broad-based civilian movement.

Most participants were refugees or descendants of refugees displaced during the 1948 Nakba . For them, the march represented both a symbolic act of return and a collective attempt to break the political isolation imposed by Israel’s blockade of Gaza since 2007. The mobilization also unfolded amid heightened tensions following the United States ’ December 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and its announced plans to relocate its embassy there – a move widely viewed by Palestinians as foreclosing their claims to East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. Seven weeks later, the United States cut its funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) by more than half, deepening anxieties about the erosion of refugee protections and international support structures. In this context, the initiative also reflected a broader exhaustion with existing political strategies, as both armed confrontation and diplomatic negotiations had failed to alter Gaza’s conditions, creating space for alternative forms of mass mobilization.

From the outset, Israeli forces responded with force. As crowds approached the fence at several locations, Israeli troops, including sniper units positioned on earth berms, deployed tear gas, rubber-coated bullets, and live ammunition to prevent demonstrators from reaching the barrier. On the first day alone, at least fifteen Palestinians were killed and more than a thousand wounded, drawing international attention to the unfolding crisis. Despite the bloodshed, protests continued weekly, spreading across five principal sites from northern Gaza to Rafah in the south. What began as a single demonstration evolved into a sustained campaign lasting nearly twenty months, from March 2018 through the end of 2019.

Israel’s Response and International Reactions

Israeli officials characterized the protests as a security threat orchestrated by Hamas, alleging that militants were using civilian crowds as cover for attacks. However, a subsequent UN Commission of Inquiry found that the demonstrations were overwhelmingly civilian in nature and driven by clearly articulated political demands. While some protesters burned tires, threw stones or Molotov cocktails, or launched incendiary kites that caused fires in nearby Israeli fields, investigators concluded that these actions were largely improvised and did not pose an imminent threat to heavily fortified Israeli positions.

Israel nonetheless adopted rules of engagement permitting live fire against individuals approaching the fence or deemed to be “instigators.” Later disclosures indicated that snipers were instructed to aim at protesters’ lower limbs to incapacitate rather than kill  – a tactic that produced catastrophic injuries.

Throughout the protests, Israeli forces repeatedly fired live ammunition at unarmed or lightly armed demonstrators, often from distances of several hundred meters. By the end of 2019, at least 214 Palestinians had been killed. The deadliest single day occurred on 14 May 2018, coinciding with the seventieth anniversary of the Nakba and the formal opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, when Israeli snipers killed sixty Palestinians and wounded more than 1,100, an event widely described as a massacre.

During the Great March of Return, three health workers were killed, more than 800 injured, and numerous ambulances targeted. Twice as many health workers were attacked during these protests as during Israel’s previous three wars on Gaza combined. Among the most prominent victims was Razan al-Najjar , a twenty-one-year-old volunteer paramedic shot in the chest on 1 June 2018 while attempting to assist wounded protesters near Khan Yunis . Wearing a clearly marked medical vest and reportedly with her hands raised, she became an emblem of the protests’ civilian character. On 20 April 2018, fourteen-year-old Mohammad Ayoub was shot dead while fleeing tear gas; he was one of at least forty-six children killed during the demonstrations. Israeli fire also struck journalists wearing press vests and persons with disabilities such as Ibrahim Abu Thuraya , a double-amputee activist known for attending protests in his wheelchair.

Mass Disablement and Health System Strain in Gaza

Beyond the death toll, the Great March of Return produced an unprecedented wave of disabling injuries. By the end of the protests, more than 36,000 Palestinians had been injured, including nearly 8,800 minors. The use of high-velocity rifle ammunition fired at close range against demonstrators’ legs resulted in complex trauma: shattered bones, extensive soft-tissue destruction, and severe nerve damage.

The Israeli military positioned dozens of snipers on sand berms and watchtowers along the Gaza perimeter, armed with high-powered rifles using 7.62-mm caliber ammunition. These rifles, which are standard NATO ammunition and also used in hunting large game, fire bullets at extremely high velocity, with an effective range well over 500 meters. At the distances at which most protesters were shot (often 50–200 meters from the fence), the energy of a 7.62-mm round is devastating to human tissue. The UN Commission specifically highlighted the “disturbing choice” of using 7.62-mm sniper rifles in this context, noting that Israeli officials themselves admitted they chose this heavier ammunition because smaller calibers (like 0.22 or 5.56 mm) “do not have the accuracy” at long range. In practice, however, many victims were shot at relatively close range (well within 100 meters) where a lighter round would have sufficed to stop a person. The 7.62-mm bullets inflicted massive trauma, literally blowing apart limbs. Operationally, it appears the Israeli command made a conscious calculation: to guarantee every hit (and possibly penetrate multiple people with one bullet), they selected ammunition that would cause catastrophic injury. This aligns with the broader aim of maiming – using “maximum force at minimal risk” to Israeli soldiers, at the cost of permanent harm to Palestinian bodies.

Medical personnel reported that over 80 percent of gunshot wounds affected the limbs, particularly the lower extremities. Surgeons noted the striking uniformity of these injuries, suggesting a deliberate targeting pattern rather than incidental harm. International doctors with experience in conflict zones described the wounds as unusually severe for crowd-control situations. One physician compared the practice to “using a tank to kill a fly.” An Israeli sniper interviewed in local media boasted of counting the number of knees he had “collected,” illustrating how incapacitation became an operational measure of success.

The humanitarian consequences were profound. Thousands of young men (the demographic most likely to participate in protests) returned home with permanent impairments. Gaza’s health system, already weakened by blockade, repeated military operations, and shortages of supplies, struggled to cope with the influx of casualties. Médecins Sans Frontières reported admitting over one hundred patients with limb gunshot wounds within the first days of the protests alone. Between March 2018 and late 2019, more than 35,600 Palestinians were injured, including nearly 8,000 by live ammunition.

Hospitals faced shortages of essential surgical equipment, antibiotics, and specialist personnel. Many patients with open fractures could not receive timely operations, leading to infections and complications. As a result, amputations became common. By the end of 2019, at least 155 protesters had lost limbs, including nineteen children, while at least twenty-seven individuals were left paralysed by spinal injuries.

Most amputations were not inevitable. Doctors reported that many limbs could have been saved with advanced treatment unavailable in Gaza due to restrictions on medical imports and patient movement. Nearly 90 percent of amputations were secondary procedures performed after infections set in. Patients often could not obtain permits to leave Gaza for specialized care abroad, transforming treatable injuries into lifelong disabilities. Survivors faced not only physical pain but also psychological trauma, unemployment, and dependence on family members in a territory with limited social support systems. Beyond the direct toll, such destruction had crippled Gaza’s economy: even before the march, unemployment among persons with disabilities had hovered around 90 percent, leaving most reliant on limited government assistance. The burden of caring for thousands of disabled individuals strained households and public services alike, while the enclave’s lone rehabilitation hospital proved insufficient for the scale of need.

Political Significance and Aftermath

Although the Great March of Return did not achieve its stated political objectives (lifting the blockade or securing recognition of the right of return), it represented one of the largest episodes of mass mobilization in Gaza since the early years of the Intifada and a rare opening for political participation outside the constraints of factional party control. Its largely civilian and inclusive character contrasted sharply with prevailing narratives that reduce Gaza to a site of armed confrontation, reasserting the role of popular resistance in Palestinian political life.

The protests also exposed the limits of international engagement. Despite extensive documentation of casualties and alleged violations of international law, external pressure failed to alter Israeli policy or significantly improve conditions on the ground. For many Palestinians, the experience reinforced a sense of abandonment by the international community, a conviction that even large-scale civilian protest could not alter the structures of blockade and occupation – a political deadlock that formed part of the background to the 7 October 2023 Hamas military operation.