Gazans protest near Israeli border ahead of 'Great Return March'
Gazans protested near the Israeli border ahead of the “Great Return March," during which Palestinian demonstrators plan to converge en masse on the Gaza Strip's roughly 45-kilometer eastern border with Israel. The planned rallies are intended to pressure Israel to lift its decade-long siege of the Gaza Strip and reaffirm the Palestinians' right to return to their ancestral homes in historical Palestine. Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has suffered a crippling Israeli/Egyptian blockade that has gutted its economy and deprived its more than two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.