Thousands of Palestinians marched near the Gaza-Israel border on Friday in a major protest which lead to clashes with Israeli military forces, in which at least 17 protesters were killed and nearly 1,500 injured. 

The massive protest, dubbed the “Massive March of Return” or the “Great Return March”, was held to claim the Palestinian right of return to Israel and to call upon the international community to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The protest came as Passover, a major Jewish holiday, was celebrated in Israel. Several Palestinian military and political groups in Gaza and the West Bank, including Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), coordinated the protest. It also happened when the Palestine-Israel peace process has entered a stalemate and the Palestinian factions, especially Hamas in the Gaza Strip, still face tremendous pressure from not only Israel and Washington, but also the Fatah faction that leads the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah of the West Bank.

Although the protest organizers called for a peaceful and non-violent march, violence still emerged. On the one hand, some protesters threw stones at Israeli soldiers and some Palestinian protesters tried to cross the fence and separation walls, while on the other hand, many Israeli soldiers are too young to react to the angry protesters calmly and properly.

Since 2007 when Hamas controlled the Gaza Strip, after the military conflict with Fatah, following Hamas' surprising victory in the Legislative Election in 2006, the relations between the Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Fatah-led West Bank have become strained. Both Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip consolidated their control by expelling other factions and establishing their own bureaucratic system. The political rivalry between Hamas and Fatah further reinforced the geographic separation within Palestinians.

The Gaza Strip under the leadership of Hamas has gradually been isolated since 2007. On the one hand, Israel and the US viewed Hamas as a “terrorist group” and decided to blockade the area by sealing off the entry ports connecting Gaza and Israel. On the other hand, Gaza’s western neighbor - Egypt in the Abdel Fatah al-Sisi era - became increasingly alert to the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) inside Egypt and in the Middle East. As an Islamic organization that grew from the branch of the MB in Gaza, Hamas has been listed by Cairo as an “alliance” of the MB inside Egypt and the important entry port, Rafah, has been blockaded by Egypt. The isolation and blockades make Palestinians’ daily life in Gaza extremely difficult, sending the unemployment rate to a prohibitive percentage. The humanitarian crisis inside the Gaza Strip becomes a major problem for the Hamas administration.

In 2017, the leadership change of Hamas provided a new chance for its reconciliation with Fatah. The moderate politician Ismail Haniya became the new leader of Hamas. He expressed his willingness to negotiate with the international community and reconcile with Fatah. Thanks to the help of Egypt, Fatah and Hamas reconciled with each other and a new unity government is expected to form in 2018.

However, the reconciliation process faces tremendous opposition from many Hamas members. Many Hamas hardliners believe Haniya compromises too much. A failed assassination targeting Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and the head of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service, Majid Faraj, in mid-March, revealed the opposition of Hamas’ armed camps to the reconciliation agreement.

As long as the relations between Hamas and Fatah remain strained, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza will surely continue.

In light of the humanitarian crisis, the setbacks of the reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah, and the widespread disappointment about the Israel-Palestine peace process, the only way for Palestinians in Gaza to get out of the predicament is to launch the massive protest to show their dissatisfaction, although this might change nothing.

(Wang Jin is a PhD candidate of the School of Political Science in University of Haifa and a research fellow at the Syria Research Center at Northwest University. The article reflects the author's opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.)