It Begins: 17,000 Palestinians Protest At Gaza Border, Five Killed, 420 Wounded So Far

LIVE: 17,000 Palestinians protest at Gaza border, four reported killed

14:45 Gaza Health Ministry: 5 killed, 420 wounded

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry announced Friday afternoon that five Palestinians had been killed and 420 wounded.

Most of the wounded are suffering from the effects of tear gas inhalation.

14:20 Palestinians clash with IDF forces in West Bank

Clashes are not limited to Gaza as Israeli forces clash with Palestinian demonstrators in protests marking Land Day in Hebron and near Ramallah, in the West Bank. Photo: Israeli border policemen take up position opposite Palestinian demonstrators near Ramallah, March 30, 2018. (REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman)

13:55 IDF issues further statement on Gaza border clashes

"The IDF estimates about 17,000 Palestinians in five locations along the fence, burning tires, and throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at the fence and at IDF troops who are responding with riot dispersal measures and shooting at a number of key instigators.

"The IDF prepared in advance with reinforcements and is prepared to act in various scenarios. We will not allow any violation or harm to Israeli sovereignty or defensive infrastructure such as the border fence

"The Hamas terror organization endangers the residents of the Gaza Strip and uses them as cover for terrorist acts. Hamas is responsible for all the events and their consequences."

12:10 The IDF issues a statement on the situation on the Gaza border

"Thousands of Palestinians are present in six clusters along the border. The Palestinians have set fire to tires and are hurling rocks at the border fence and toward IDF troops. The forces are responding using riot dispersal measures and accurate fire targeting ringleaders.

In light of the security assessment, the IDF has declared the area as a closed military zone. Any activity in the region requires IDF permission. There are no special instructions to citizens.

The IDF had prepared in advance with large forces and is prepared to respond to various developments. We will not allow a breach of our sovereignty or harm to the border defences. 

The Hamas terror organisation is endangering the residents of Gaza and using them as cover for terror activities. Hamas alone bears responsibility to all events and their ramifications."

5 Gazans said killed, 370 wounded amid massive border protests

Army uses live fire, rubber bullets to keep back mobs of Palestinians who throw rocks, firebombs at Israeli troops during 'March of Return' demonstration

Four Palestinians were killed and some 370 were wounded by Israeli rubber bullet and live fire in the Gaza Strip on Friday, as a series of massive protests kicked off along the security fence surrounding the enclave, Palestinian sources said.

The Israel Defense Forces estimated that 17,000 Palestinians were taking part in “March of Return” demonstrations along the Gaza border, spread out among the five main protest sites.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry reported that four men were killed during the mass protests along the border, bringing the toll death toll on Friday to four. Some 370 were injured as of 2:30 p.m., with most of the injuries being caused by rubber bullets and tear gas. A smaller number were hit by live fire.

The army confirmed that soldiers had shot at “main instigators.” It said some protesters were lighting tires on fire and throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at IDF troops on the other side of the border. 

The military maintained that it would not allow Palestinian protesters to “violate Israel’s sovereignty” by crossing the security fence.

The main sites for protests in Gaza were Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, el-Bureij and Gaza City in the center, and Jabalya in the northern portion of the coastal enclave.

Earlier Friday morning, a Palestinian farmer was killed by Israeli tank fire near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run health ministry said. Witnesses said he was working his land near the border when the shells hit, but Hadashot news reported that the army suspected the man had been trying to place an improvised explosive device near the security fence.

Via through social media, leaflets dropped from airplanes and statements to news outlets, Israeli officials have repeatedly warned Palestinians not to try to breach the security fence during the protests.

On Friday, the army stationed additional infantry battalions and more than 100 snipers along the border in order to prevent that from happening. The Border Police and Israel Police also sent additional forces to southern Israel in order to act as a secondary defense line in case Palestinians made it past the soldiers along the border.

The IDF declared the area around the Israeli side of the Gaza border a “closed military zone,” forbidding Israeli civilians from getting close without army permission.

IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot was leading the army’s riot control operation, with assistance from the head of the Southern Command Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the head of IDF Operations Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, and Israel’s military liaison to the Palestinians, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai.

The army said it held the Hamas terror group responsible for any violence that takes place along the Gaza security fence during the protests and for the “consequences” of it.

Over the past few days, Palestinians in Gaza have pitched tents near the volatile border with Israel ahead of the planned six-week “March of Return” protest that began on Friday.

The protest comes amid rising tensions as the United States prepares to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Organizers said it would be peaceful but Israeli officials were wary of a fresh flareup along the enclave’s border.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman warned on Friday that any Palestinians from Gaza approaching the security fence with Israel were putting their lives at risk.

“Those who approach the fence today are putting themselves in danger,” Liberman said in his post. “I would advise [Gazans] to go on with your lives and not engage in provocations.”

The first protest kicked off on Friday, when Palestinians worldwide mark Land Day, which commemorates the Israeli government’s expropriation of Arab-owned land in the Galilee on March 30, 1976, and ensuing demonstrations in which six Arab Israelis were killed. It is also, by coincidence, the eve of the week-long Passover festival.

Camping and protests in Gaza are expected to continue until mid-May, around the time the US is set to inaugurate its new embassy in Jerusalem.

Mid-May will also mark the anniversary of what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe, which saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee their homes during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.

According to the United Nations, some 1.3 million of Gaza’s 1.9 million residents are refugees or their descendants.

Friday’s demonstrations mark the beginning of the Palestinians’ return to all of Palestine, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a speech at the scene of the mass protests in the Gaza Strip.

“We are here to declare today that our people will not agree to keep the right of return only as a slogan,” he said. Haniyeh added that the March of Return was also aimed at sending a message to US President Donald Trump to the effect that the Palestinians will not give up their right to Jerusalem and “Palestine.”

Khaled al-Batsh, the leader of the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad terror group, which is also among the planners of the protest, said tents would be located 500 meters from the border, just outside the buffer zone between Gaza and Israel.

Batsh said protesters were calling for Palestinians to be allowed to return to land that is now inside Israel. “Seventy years ago we left and today we have decided to return to our country,” he told AFP.

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.

Hamas leader: Protests mark the beginning of our return to 'all of Palestine’

Demonstrations Friday along Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip mark the beginning of the Palestinians’ return to “all of Palestine,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a speech at the scene.

“We are here to declare today that our people will not agree to keep the ‘right of return’ only as a slogan,” he said. Haniyeh added that the so-called “March of Return” was also aimed at sending a message to US President Donald Trump to the effect that the Palestinians will not give up their right to Jerusalem.

IDF: 17,000 Palestinians taking part in Gaza border protests

The Times of Israel is liveblogging Friday’s developments as they unfold.

15min ago

Hamas says fifth Palestinian killed in Gaza protests

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says a fifth Palestinian was killed by Israeli gunfire during violent protests along the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip.

'Heightened Tensions': Israeli Stealth Fighters Fly Over Iranian Sites, Speculation Of Imminent War As Hamas Plans Mass Demonstration Along Border - As A Cover For Massive Military Operation?

Israeli Stealth Fighters Fly Over Iran Amid Speculation Of Imminent War

One week after Israel demonstratively released a video of  a 2007 airstrike on a suspected Syrian nuclear facility (after refusing to officially acknowledge the operation for more than a decade), the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported late on Thursday that 2 Israeli F-35 stealth fighters had entered Iranian airspace over the past month.

Sources quoted in Al-Jarida said that two stealth fighters flew over Syrian and Iraqi airspace to reach Iran, and even targeted locations in the Iranian cities Bandar Abbas, Esfahan and Shiraz. Then the two ultra advanced fighter jets circled at high altitude above Persian Gulf - read Iranian - sites suspected of being associated with the Iranian nuclear program.

Ominously, the Kuwaiti newspaper also reports that the two jets went undetected by radar, including the Russian radar system located in Syria. It was unclear if the provocative Israeli operation was undertaken in coordination with the US army, which recently conducted joint exercises with the IDF (recall "Top US General Says American Troops Should Be Ready To Die For Israel")

The Kuwaiti report added that the seven F-35 fighters in active service in the Israel Air Force have conducted a number of missions in Syria and on the Lebanese-Syrian border, and highlighted that the fighter jets can travel from Israel to Iran twice without refueling.

As the J-Post puts it, "the act is a signal of heightened regional tensions, especially in light of recent Israeli military attacks in Syria, including against Iranian bases in the country."

In response to the Iranian drone, a senior Israeli official quoted by the JPost warned that Israel will react with force to Iran's efforts to entrench itself further in Syria: "the Iranians are determined to continue to establish themselves in Syria, and the next incident is only a matter of time,” he said, warning that Israel does not rule out that that the Islamic Republic will continue to try to attack Israel.

Meanwhile, if Israel is looking for a military conflict spark, whether legitimate or "false flag", it may get this opportunity as soon as tomorrow, when the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is reportedly planning a mass demonstration along Israel's border on Friday, prompting fears of a new war with the Jewish state ahead of the Passover holiday, according to regional experts and U.S. officials who say they are closely monitoring the situation.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, following a recent military exercise described by observers as "unprecedented," Hamas leaders called for some 100,000 Gaza Strip resident to engage in six weeks of mass demonstrations along the Israeli border as Jewish families gear up for the Passover holiday, which begins Friday evening.

Regional experts closely tracking the situation say the demonstrations are meant as cover for a mass military campaign to swarm Israel's border and stoke violence against the Jewish state.

The situation is being closely monitored by Trump administration officials, who outlined concerns that Hamas could use civilian protesters as human shields as cover for attacks on Israeli forces. State Department officials told the Washington Free Beacon that they are aware of the upcoming protests and will be tracking the situation closely.

"We are aware of calls by Hamas asking people to march along the Israeli border over the coming weeks," one U.S. official told the Free Beacon." We will monitor the situation and developments closely."

The State Department also emphasized that it still considers Hamas a terror group and is aware of its routine use of human shields during terror operations. "Our position on Hamas has not changed," the official said. "It is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. Any use of human shields is absolutely unacceptable."

Omri Ceren, a managing director at The Israel Project, a D.C.-based organization that works on Middle East issues, warned that Hamas is using civilian protests as cover for a massive military operation that could launch another regional war.

Evidence suggests Hamas has already prepared to flood Israel with armed assets during the demonstration and has even positioned equipment such as tractors to shift the ground and erect fortifications.

"Hamas is trying to trigger a Passover War and the U.N. seems eager to help them," Ceren said. "Hamas is preparing thousands of civilians to rush Israel's border, tear down the defensive fence, and provide cover as Hamas fighters flood into Israel."

While Israeli military officials have planned to use as little force as possible to control any violent eruption, things could get out of hand quickly, Ceren said.

"The Israelis will do everything possible to prevent escalation and avoid casualties, but this is the kind of thing that could go really bad really quickly," he explained.

Of course, the alternative is that Israel will be delighted by, and eagerly welcome any military escalation as it will give it a greenlight to strike not only Palestine, but the country it accuses of being the biggest supporter of Hamas, Iran.

In other words, there is a non-trivial probability that a war betwen Israel and Iran may break out as soon as this weekend, catalyzed by one of several potential triggers.

China Taking The Long Road To Solve The Petro-Yuan Puzzle

China taking the long road to solve the petro-yuan puzzle

Few geoeconomic game-changers are more spectacular than yuan-denominated future crude oil contracts – especially when set up by the largest importer of crude on the planet.

And yet Beijing’s media strategy seems to have consisted in substantially play down the official launch of the petro-yuan at the Shanghai International Energy Exchange.

Still, some euphoria was in order. Brent Crude soared to $71 a barrel for the first time since 2015. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) reached the highest level in three years at $66.55 a barrel; then retreated to $65.53.

A series of petro-yuan “firsts” include the first time overseas investors are able to access a Chinese commodity market. Significantly, US dollars will be accepted as deposit and for settlement. In the near future, a basket of currencies will also be accepted as deposit.

As the yuan progressively reaches full consolidation in trade settlement, the petro-yuan threat to the US dollar, inscribed in a complex, long-term process, will disseminate the Holy Grail: crude oil futures contracts priced in yuan fully convertible into gold.

That means China’s vast array of trade partners will be able to convert yuan into gold without having to keep funds in Chinese assets or turn them into US dollars. Exporters facing the wrath of Washington, such as Russia, Iran or Venezuela, may then avoid US sanctions by trading oil in yuan convertible to gold. Iran and Venezuela, for instance, would have no problems redirecting tankers to China in order to sell directly in the Chinese market – if that’s what it takes.

In the short- to medium-term the petro-yuan will surely boost the appeal of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), especially when it comes to the House of Saud.

It’s still unclear in what capacity Beijing will be part of the Aramco IPO, but that will be a decisive step towards the fateful historic moment when Beijing will tell – or compel – Riyadh to start accepting payment for oil in yuan.

Only then the petrodollar may be at serious risk – along with the US dollar as the global reserve currency.

How to bypass the US dollar, as well as the petrodollar, has been discussed at BRICS summits for years now. Russia is now China’s largest crude oil supplier (1.32 million barrels a day last month, up 17.8% from a year earlier.) Moscow and Beijing have been forcefully bypassing the US dollar in bilateral trade. In October last year, China launched a payment system in both currencies – the yuan and the ruble. And that will apply to Russian oil bought by China.

The game will really start to change when other nations realize they have found a real credible alternative to the petrodollar, and switching to the yuan en masse will certainly spark a US dollar crisis.

What the petro-yuan may be able to provoke in the short term is an acceleration of the next crises in treasuries and bond markets, which will inevitably spill out in the form of a crisis in global currency markets.

The game-changing aspect, for now, mostly has to do with the exquisite timing. Beijing has crafted an ultra-long-term plan and yet chose to launch the petro-yuan smack in the middle of a period of sharp deterioration in trade relations with Washington.

The answer to the geoeconomic riddle is bound to be The Golden Moment. Eventually gold will rise to a level where Beijing – by then totally in control over physical gold markets – feels ready to set a conversion rate.

Yet this is just the initial step in an ultra-high-stakes game. One should keep one’s eyes firmly focused on the interpolations between trade connectivity and technological breakthroughs. The petrodollar may be in danger but is far from finished.

Globalist Agenda

Then They Came for the Globalists

C.J. HOPKINS 

Seriously, though, all satire aside, this stigmatization of terms like “globalist,” “globalism,” and “global capitalism” is a key component of The War on Dissent which the global capitalist ruling classes have been waging against a broad assortment of insurgent elements for the last eighteen months. It isn’t just a question of delegitimizing dissidents by smearing them as anti-Semites, Russian agents, and conspiracy theorists. 

The goal is also to conceal the essential nature of the conflict itself. 

The essential nature of the conflict is neoliberalism versus neo-nationalism. This is what we are experiencing currently, not a Russian assault on Western democracy, nor even a resumption of the Cold War, but, rather, the global capitalist ruling classes putting down a neo-nationalist insurgency … the insurgency that led to the Brexit referendum and the presidency of Donald Trump.

See, the problem for the capitalist ruling classes is that global neoliberalism (i.e., globalism) is a really tough sell to regular folks. They can’t just come out and explain to people that national sovereignty is essentially dead, and that political power now resides among a network of global corporations (which couldn’t care less about their “nationality”) exploiting a globalized labor market (which is why their “good jobs” are not coming back) and a globalized financial market (which is why almost everything is being privatized and their families are being debt-enslaved). 

Nor can they admit that the “War on Terror” and the European refugee crisis it has caused, and the chaos and slaughter in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, et cetera, is the predictable result of global capitalism aggressively restructuring the Greater Middle East, which it started doing more or less immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union (i.e., as soon as the final impediment to its pursuit of global hegemony was removed). This kind of thing doesn’t go over very well, not with most regular working class people.

So what the global capitalist ruling classes have to do is … well, they have to lie. 

They have to disseminate a different narrative, a narrative that has nothing to do with the hegemony of global capitalism, the dissolution of national sovereignty, and the privatization of virtually everything. Because people aren’t total morons, this narrative needs to bear some resemblance to the actual conflict taking place. 

So, all right, a little rebranding is in order. Global neoliberalism becomes “Western democracy,” neo-nationalism becomes “Nazism,” and Vladimir Putin becomes Adolf Hitler.

Presto! Now things are nice and simple! History, geopolitics, and socioeconomics vanish into the ether! Capitalism schmapitalism! This is no time for critical thinking, not with Putin-Nazis coming out of the woodwork! No, this is a time to rally behind the freedom fighters at the FBI, the CIA, the corporate media, and the rest of the military industrial complex, and to mercilessly hunt down Russian infiltrators, Putin sympathizers, crypto-Assadists, neo-Strasserian, alt-right entryists, and other sowers of division and discord! 

We need to get these folks delegitimitized, stigmatized as racists and anti-Semites, or terrorists, or some other type of “extremist,” before they can “influence” anyone else with their Facebook ads and subversive essays.

You will know them by the words they use, and by the words they do not use. Anybody using words like “globalist,” “global capitalism,” or “neoliberal,” or suggesting that anyone voted for Trump or Brexit for any reason other than racism, you can pretty much rest assured that they’re Nazis. Also, anyone writing about “banks” or the “deep state.” Absolutely Nazis. Oh yeah, and the “corporate media,” naturally. Only Putin-Nazis talk like that. Oh, and definitely anyone who hasn’t spent the last two years attacking Trump (as if there has been anything else to focus on), or has implied that “the Russians” aren’t out to destroy us, or that the historical moment we are living through might be just a bit more complex than that … well, you know what they’re really saying. They’re saying, “we need to exterminate the Jews.”

Look, I could go on and on with this, but I don’t think I really need to. Remember, I’m a Nazi thought criminal now. So just go back and read through some of my essays and make note of all the coded Nazi messages, or check with the Anti-Defamation League, or the SPLC, or the corporate media, or … well, just ask the good folks at Google.

Powerful 7.2 Quake Shakes Papua New Guinea

Powerful quake shakes Papua New Guinea, month after disaster

A strong earthquake shook Papua New Guinea on Friday, a month after a more powerful quake killed at least 125 people in the Pacific island nation. Damage and casualties were not immediately reported.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said the magnitude 7.2 quake may have caused small changes in the sea locally but the danger had passed within about an hour or so. There was no tsunami risk to Australia or the wider Pacific, according to the PTWC and Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at magnitude 6.9 with a depth of 35 kilometers (21) miles about 162 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Rabaul in a remote area of East New Britain province.

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake on Feb. 26 forced 35,000 out of damaged homes, injured dozens and brought work to a halt at four oil and gas fields. The work to repair roads and compile further damage assessments was slow in the remote region regularly hit by aftershocks.

Home to 7 million people, Papua New Guinea is east of Indonesia and north of Australia's east coast. It is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the string of seismic faults where most of the world's earthquakes occur