Unarmed Gazan infiltrates into Israel, is picked up by IDF

Israeli soldiers arrested an unarmed Palestinian man who infiltrated into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, the army said.

The suspect was arrested shortly after he made his way past the security fence in the southern Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces said.

No weapons were found in his possession, an army spokesperson confirmed.

He was handed over to the Shin Bet security service for questioning.

The infiltration attempt came two days after mass protests along the Gaza border. On Friday, tens of thousands of Palestinians massed along the security fence, with some rioters throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli troops on the other side.

The IDF soldiers retaliated mostly with less-lethal mob dispersal measures, namely tear gas and rubber bullets. In some cases, sharpshooters targeted rioters with live rounds.

According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, 15 people were killed during the demonstrations and over 1,000 were injured. Those figures could not be independently verified, and Israeli officials have said that they are inflated and that soldiers used “pinpoint fire” to only target those committing violent actions.

According to Israel, at least 10 of the Palestinian men killed on Friday were known members of terrorist groups. Most of those claims could be independently verified, based on photographs of the men in uniform or receiving a military-style funeral from a terrorist organization, but some could not be immediately substantiated. Hamas acknowledged that five of the dead were gunmen from its military wing.

The Palestinians’ march to Gaza’s border with Israel on Friday was the largest such demonstration in recent memory, calling for Palestinians to be allowed to return to land that their ancestors fled from in the 1948 War of Independence. It was dubbed the “March of Return.”

Protest organizers have said mass marches would continue until May 15, the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. Palestinians mark that date as their “Nakba,” or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands left or were forced to leave during the 1948 war.

Further stoking unrest is the expectation that the United States will transfer its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in mid-May. The proposed move has infuriated Palestinian leaders.

At previous peace talks, the Palestinians have always demanded, along with sovereignty in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Old City, a “right of return” to Israel for Palestinian refugees who left or were forced out of Israel when it was established. The Palestinians demand this right not only for those of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who are still alive — a figure estimated in the low tens of thousands — but also for their descendants, who number in the millions.

No Israeli government would ever be likely to accept this demand, since it would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish-majority state. Israel’s position is that Palestinian refugees and their descendants would become citizens of a Palestinian state at the culmination of the peace process, just as Jews who fled or were forced out of Middle Eastern countries by hostile governments became citizens of Israel.