QALANDIA, Occupied West Bank  (IPS) — Israeli confidence that Nakba day, marked by The
Great March on May 15 in the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel and
neighboring Arab countries, would remain under control, has backfired badly.

Palestinian refugees jump fences on May 15, 2011 in the Golan Heights in Syria for the first time since 1973, crossing into territory occupied by Israelis , the 63rd year since the Nakba, or ‘Day of Catastrophe.’

Nakba, or catastrophe, day on May 15, commemorates the
establishment of the State of Israel, during which hundreds of thousands of
indigenous Palestinians either fled or were driven out of their homes by Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) to make way for the fledgling state.

Three days of mourning, marked by protests, demonstrations,
marches and rioting culminated in a “The Great March Day” on Sunday.
Thousands of unarmed Palestinian refugees marched on Israel’s borders from the
West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.

Dozens in Syria managed to scale the border fence and cross
into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Approximately 14 protesters from
Lebanon and Syria were shot dead by the IDF, which accused Lebanese forces of
being responsible for the Lebanese deaths.

The crossings took Israeli intelligence and security
officials by surprise. Expecting mass demonstrations within the occupied
territories and Israel proper, thousands of Israeli riot police and soldiers
were placed on high alert in areas were clashes were expected. A limited number
of IDF personnel manned the northern borders.

Egyptian and Jordanian security forces prevented hundreds of
pro-Palestinian sympathizers from trying to cross into Israel. Egyptian police
used riot dispersal methods against thousands of demonstrators in Alexandria
and Cairo protesting outside the Israeli embassy and consulate.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinians were injured throughout
the West Bank and in Gaza. Israeli troops shelled and trained machine-gun fire
on hundreds of unarmed Palestinians, many of them women and children,
approaching Israel’s Erez crossing point in northern Gaza. One Palestinian was
killed and dozens seriously wounded.

IPS spent the day at the Qalandia crossing in occupied East
Jerusalem. During the course of the day ambulances, their sirens screaming,
raced backwards and forwards as they battled to negotiate the streets where up
to a thousand Palestinian young men clashed with hundreds of Israeli soldiers, riot
and undercover police.

Burning tires brought in by the truckload belched out black
smoke which intermingled with clouds of teargas. Dozens of Palestinians were
treated for teargas complications, some suffered seizures as doctors commented
on the unusual strength of the gas. Dozens more Palestinians were treated for
injuries from rubber-coated steel bullets, some shot from close range.

The Qalandia clashes, which went on into the evening, were
marked by unrelenting waves of young men who would approach the checkpoint
until pushed back by teargas and rubber bullets. An atmosphere of defiance was
marked by what appears to be a new unity of purpose.

One of the masked protestors taking a break from the
“frontline” for a sandwich and water told IPS that he would fight the
Israelis to the end.

“They want to kick my grandparents out of their home in
Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem and we should just sit idly by? I don’t think
so,” he told IPS.

“Another Palestinian uprising (intifada) is on the
way,” Yazen, the owner of a windshield business, who spent six years in an
Israeli prison during the first intifada and whose brother is currently serving
17 years for military resistance to the occupation, told IPS as he watched the
clashes.

Supporters of both major Palestinian factions, Fatah and
Hamas, stood their ground as busloads of Palestinians from other cities and
towns in the occupied West Bank swelled their ranks.

Stores lining the streets were turned into makeshift medical
clinics as Palestinian medical teams treated the wounded on the floors. The
shopkeepers, committed to losing a day’s business, allowed protestors to take
refuge from the bullets and gas while handing out water and tissues.

Enterprising housewives made the rounds with chopped-up raw
onions and potatoes (teargas antidotes) which they handed out to those overcome
by the gas, while protestors came to the aid of their wounded comrades.

While saturation foreign and international media coverage in
Qalandia and other flashpoints probably ensured that Israeli security forces
acted with some restraint, in other areas away from the media glare Israeli
forces were accused of using intimidation tactics and vindictiveness while
dealing with protesters.

During Friday’s anti-wall protest in the village of Nabi
Saleh near Ramallah a U.S. citizen was shot directly in the head, from close
distance, with a high-velocity teargas canister in what appears to be a
deliberate attack by Israeli forces.

He sustained serious head injuries and was rushed to
hospital. By Israeli law these high-velocity containers are meant to be shot in
an upward arch from no closer than 40 meters, due to their lethal nature.

In the last few years several other U.S. citizens have
sustained brain damage and the loss of an eye from similar attacks. Countless
Palestinians have been wounded and killed in other identical incidents.

An Israeli activist, whose arm was broken after Israeli
soldiers shot him, had to walk several kilometers over rough terrain to get
medical treatment after the Israeli commander in charge of Nabi Saleh forcibly
prevented ambulances from reaching and evacuating the wounded.

Israeli military and domestic intelligence had predicted
disturbances on Sunday but confidently stated they would be limited and not
spiral out of control into anything larger.

They appear to be wrong on that account, with experts
predicting the possible outbreak of a third Palestinian intifada, when the
Palestinian Authority (PA) takes its case for statehood to the UN in September.