If the goal is to sink a U.S. carrier, couldn’t Russia saturate a carrier’s defenses with a volley of conventionally-armed hypersonic missiles like the Mach 5-plus Khinzal?

Russia has begun underwater tests of its Poseidon thermonuclear torpedo.

The Poseidon is an 80-foot-long nuclear-powered submersible robot that is essentially an underwater ICBM. It is designed to travel autonomously across thousands of miles, detonate outside an enemy coastal city, and destroy it by generating a tsunami.

“In the sea area protected from a potential enemy’s reconnaissance means, the underwater trials of the nuclear propulsion unit of the Poseidon drone are underway,” an unnamed Russian defense official told the TASS news agency.

The source also said the “the reactor is installed in the hull of the operating drone but the tests are being held as part of experimental design work rather than full-fledged sea trials at this stage.”

TASS also reports the Poseidon, — the name was chosen in a Web contest held by Russia’s Ministry of Defense – will be armed with a 2-megaton warhead. That’s more than enough to destroy a city. But that leaves the question of why Russia would choose to nuke an American city with an underwater drone – even one that allegedly travels 100 miles an hour – when an ICBM can do the job in 30 minutes.

Russia suggests the Poseidon is a retaliatory weapon that would revenge a U.S. first strike even if American missile defenses were capable of stopping hundreds of Russian ICBMs. But even in the unlikely event that the U.S. could intercept 500 or more Russian ballistic missiles, a delivery system that could take days or weeks to reach its target seems hardly an efficient deterrent.

More intriguing is the suggestion that Poseidon could be used against U.S. aircraft carriers. A very fast, nuclear-armed drone could prove difficult for American anti-submarine defenses to stop. In a March 2018 speech , Russian President Vladimir Putin described his nation as being able to “move at great depths — I would say extreme depths — intercontinentally, at a speed multiple times higher than the speed of submarines, cutting-edge torpedoes and all kinds of surface vessels, including some of the fastest. It is really fantastic. They are quiet, highly maneuverable and have hardly any vulnerabilities for the enemy to exploit. There is simply nothing in the world capable of withstanding them.”

Putin added that Poseidon’s “nuclear power unit is unique for its small size while offering an amazing power-weight ratio. It is a hundred times smaller than the units that power modern submarines, but is still more powerful and can switch into combat mode, that is to say, reach maximum capacity, 200 times faster.”

Let’s also leave aside the question of why, if Russia really is that advanced in reactor design, its regular nuclear submarines aren’t so blessed. The puzzle is why a giant robot submarine would be needed to detonate a nuclear warhead near a U.S. aircraft carrier (presumably Poseidon is too expensive to waste by arming it with a mere high-explosive warhead). If the goal is to sink a U.S. carrier, couldn’t Russia saturate a carrier’s defenses with a volley of conventionally-armed hypersonic missiles like the Mach 5-plus Khinzal? And if nukes are being used, Russia has no shortage of missiles, bombs and aircraft to target American ships.

Whether Poseidon adds much to Russia’s strategic nuclear forces is doubtful. No less is doubtful is Poseidon the Carrier-Killer.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

The worst earthquake in Massachusetts history 260 years ago

It happened before, and it could happen again.

By Hilary Sargent @lilsarg

Boston.com Staff | 11.19.15 | 5:53 AM

On November 18, 1755, Massachusetts experienced its largest recorded earthquake.

The earthquake occurred in the waters off Cape Ann, and was felt within seconds in Boston, and as far away as Nova Scotia, the Chesapeake Bay, and upstate New York, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Seismologists have since estimated the quake to have been between 6.0 and 6.3 on the Richter scale, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society.

While there were no fatalities, the damage was extensive.

According to the USGS, approximately 100 chimneys and roofs collapsed, and over a thousand were damaged.

The worst damage occurred north of Boston, but the city was not unscathed.

A 1755 report in The Philadelphia Gazette described the quake’s impact on Boston:

“There was at first a rumbling noise like low thunder, which was immediately followed with such a violent shaking of the earth and buildings, as threw every into the greatest amazement, expecting every moment to be buried in the ruins of their houses. In a word, the instances of damage done to our houses and chimnies are so many, that it would be endless to recount them.”

The quake sent the grasshopper weathervane atop Faneuil Hall tumbling to the ground, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society.

An account of the earthquake, published in The Pennsylvania Gazette on December 4, 1755.

The earthquake struck at 4:30 in the morning, and the shaking lasted “near four minutes,” according to an entry John Adams, then 20, wrote in his diary that day.

The brief diary entry described the damage he witnessed.

“I was then at my Fathers in Braintree, and awoke out of my sleep in the midst of it,” he wrote. “The house seemed to rock and reel and crack as if it would fall in ruins about us. 7 Chimnies were shatter’d by it within one mile of my Fathers house.”

The shaking was so intense that the crew of one ship off the Boston coast became convinced the vessel had run aground, and did not learn about the earthquake until they reached land, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society.

In 1832, a writer for the Hampshire (Northampton) Gazette wrote about one woman’s memories from the quake upon her death.

“It was between 4 and 5 in the morning, and the moon shone brightly. She and the rest of the family were suddenly awaked from sleep by a noise like that of the trampling of many horses; the house trembled and the pewter rattled on the shelves. They all sprang out of bed, and the affrightted children clung to their parents. “I cannot help you dear children,” said the good mother, “we must look to God for help.”

The Cape Ann earthquake came just 17 days after an earthquake estimated to have been 8.5-9.0 on the Richter scale struck in Lisbon, Portugal, killing at least 60,000 and causing untold damage.

There was no shortage of people sure they knew the impretus for the Cape Ann earthquake.

According to many ministers in and around Boston, “God’s wrath had brought this earthquake upon Boston,” according to the Massachusetts Historical Society.

In “Verses Occasioned by the Earthquakes in the Month of November, 1755,” Jeremiah Newland, a Taunton resident who was active in religious activities in the Colony, wrote that the earthquake was a reminder of the importance of obedience to God.

“It is becaufe we broke thy Laws,

that thou didst shake the Earth.

…

O what a Day the Scriptures say,

the EARTHQUAKE doth foretell;

O turn to God; lest by his Rod,

he cast thee down to Hell.”

Boston Pastor Jonathan Mayhew warned in a sermon that the 1755 earthquakes in Massachusetts and Portugal were “judgments of heaven, at least as intimations of God’s righteous displeasure, and warnings from him.”

There were some, though, who attempted to put forth a scientific explanation for the earthquake.

Well, sort of.

In a lecture delivered just a week after the earthquake, Harvard mathematics professor John Winthrop said the quake was the result of a reaction between “vapors” and “the heat within the bowels of the earth.” But even Winthrop made sure to state that his scientific theory “does not in the least detract from the majesty … of God.”

It has been 260 years since the Cape Ann earthquake. Some experts, including Boston College seismologist John Ebel, think New England could be due for another significant quake.

In a recent Boston Globe report, Ebel said the New England region “can expect a 4 to 5 magnitude quake every decade, a 5 to 6 every century, and a magnitude 6 or above every thousand years.”

If the Cape Ann earthquake occurred today, “the City of Boston could sustain billions of dollars of earthquake damage, with many thousands injured or killed,” according to a 1997 study by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

“The untimely death of these two agreements would add fuel to a new arms race and further undermine stability and predictability between Washington and Moscow,” warned former National Security Council senior director Jon Wolfsthal.

In mid-December, 26 Democratic senators wrote Trump “out of deep concern that your administration is now abandoning generations of bipartisan U.S. leadership.” They feared that Trump and his administration wanted “to double down on new, unnecessary nuclear weapons while scraping mutually beneficial treaties.” This, they said, “risks the United States sliding into another arms race with Russia and erodes U.S. nonproliferation efforts around the world.”

Some countries, perhaps many of them, may see the building of new arsenals and the killing of restraining treaties as a material breach of the U.S. and Russian pledges in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, up for review in 2020. “Today, pessimism about the future of the nuclear nonproliferation regime is again on the rise,” writes Harvard professor Rebecca Davis Gibbons. More countries, armed with more nuclear weapons would likely encourage greater risk-taking, leading to more conventional conflicts and the great risks of escalation.

2. President Trump remains a unique global nuclear threat. The danger comes from the combination of his nuclear policies, his ability to command the launch of a nuclear weapon at anytime, for any reason, and his intensifying domestic political crises.

Any president in this period would face the problems of restraining nuclear-armed adversaries, maintaining a U.S. nuclear deterrent, and rolling back the nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran. But Trump’s policies have made several of these problems worse. His Nuclear Posture Review would build new, and more usable, nuclear weapons at a price tag of almost $2 trillion while abandoning any effort to restrain global arsenals. This not only fuels an arms race, it breaks the deal with the Senate that “investments in the U.S. nuclear weapons deterrent…must be accompanied by pursuit of continued arms control measures,” as the 26 senators wrote.

Serious concerns about Trump’s mental stability have raised serious questions about the wisdom of a system that gives the president sole, unchecked authority to launch America’s nuclear weapons. Trump’s January 2018 tweet warning to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” sparked bipartisan worries.

“Spoken like a petulant ten year old,” said Eliot Cohen, political scientist and professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

“No one person should have the power to decide when the U.S. will be the first to use nuclear weapons,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass..

In the new year, multiple investigations will increase the pressure on Trump. “If the Mueller report implicates Trump or his family,” Keith Mestrich of Amalgamated Bank told journalist Bill Press, “who knows what he will do?” During his impeachment crisis, President Richard Nixon brought the nuclear alert level up to DefCon 3, just short of the alert level during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Trump could do worse.

3. War with Iran is not an immediate nuclear risk, but starting a new, larger war in an already chaotic region would lead quickly to new nuclear programs. Iran would undoubtedly restart and expand its program (now effectively frozen by the 2015 anti-nuclear deal). Saudi Arabia has already pledged to match Iran’s efforts. New nuclear-armed states would appear alongside Israel in the region within the coming decade.

This threat ranks ahead of North Korea because unlike Northeast Asia, where there are no U.S. allies who want to go to war, the Middle East features Saudi Arabia under Mohammed bin Salman and Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, who may seek to provoke military conflict with Iran.

President Trump seems reluctant to start new wars, but John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are orchestrating a “maximum pressure” campaign and staffing up the State and Defense Departments with Iran war hawks. Our European allies oppose this campaign, say the administration has failed to build a coalition against Iran, and worry it will lead to military escalation.

As domestic difficulties increase for the leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and America, one or more of them could be tempted to distract critics and rally the public with a war crisis. The Persian Gulf was in 2018 and will remain in 2019 the area of the world most likely to see a new war, with profound nuclear consequences.

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4. North Korea holds both promise and peril. After a tumultuous January that raised fears of nuclear war, the Olympic peace effort of South Korean President Moon Jae-in succeeded, lowering tensions and opening up a diplomatic path. Trump’s surprise acceptance in March of North Korean President Kim Jong-un’s meeting offer led to a bizarre Singapore summit. But the joint efforts have dramatically lowered the risk of war on the peninsula and provide the glimmer of a diplomatic resolution.

North Korea is the one area of the world where Trump could secure a foreign policy victory. “While it is welcome that we are moving away from a warpath,” 38 North editor Jenny Town concluded, “the jury is still out on whether the Trump administration has the political will and prowess to sustain this process and actually take the negotiation past broad commitments to implementable measures.”

If Trump strikes a partial deal at the planned 2019 summit with Kim, he could establish a step-by-step process that could advance security assurances to North Korea and begin suspension and dismantlement of its nuclear infrastructure. It will be partial, and uncertain, but it will give Moon what he needs to advance stabilization efforts on the peninsula.

Trump could stumble, or be undermined by those in his own administration, like Bolton and Pompeo, who insist on North Korea’s complete disarmament before any U.S. reciprocal steps. Congressional Democrats have demonstrated knee-jerk opposition to Trump’s diplomacy. They could continue to criticize any deal as too weak, hoping to get to the right of him on a national security issue. Or critics could be proven correct, that North Korea has no intention of negotiating even a partial denuclearization deal.

Some or all of these obstacles could destroy the diplomatic path in 2019. “At this point, the risks of a war will probably start rising again,” warns Carnegie Endowment expert James Acton. “Once diplomacy has been tried and ‘failed,’ what else is left?” Any spark could set off a military conflict that could quickly go nuclear.

5. South Asia is the sleeper nuclear catastrophe. Tensions between India and Pakistan eased in 2018. The Council on Foreign Relations lowered the risk of conflict to “low” in its annual Preventive Priorities Survey.

But the impact of a conflict here remains the highest of any region in the world. A war between the two nations would almost certainly quickly go nuclear, kill tens of millions, trigger global economic chaos, and have catastrophic global consequences.

Pakistan and India have the fastest growing nuclear forces in the world. Both have about 150 nuclear weapons, are building more, are building more production plants for plutonium and highly enriched uranium for the cores of weapons, and are deploying “battlefield” systems similar to the weapons NATO and the Warsaw Pact deployed in the 1950s and 1960s. 

Scientists, using new, more advanced climate models, have updated previous estimates of the “nuclear winter” effect. They now believe that as few as 100 atomic bombs of the type deployed in South Asia, exploded in the dense urban centers of that subcontinent, would put enough soot and particulates in the atmosphere to surround the globe with clouds, lowering global temperatures by 2 to 3 degrees for several years. This would kill a large portion of the world’s food crops. Over one billion people would die in the resulting famine. The resulting migrations and struggles of the survivors would threaten all of human civilization. 

All of these nuclear risks are serious. Some are world-ending. None are receiving the attention they deserve. In 2018, we whistled past the nuclear graveyard. We have to hope that we will be smarter in 2019.

Assad green-lights Iraq attacks on Islamic State in Syria as U.S. exit looms

By Albert Aji

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad authorized Sunday Iraqi forces to attack the Islamic State group inside Syria without waiting for permission from authorities in Damascus, state news agency SANA said, as the two allies coordinate their fight against extremists ahead of a planned U.S. withdrawal from Syria.

The announcement highlights the close relations between the two neighboring Arab countries that are both allied with Iran. IS once controlled large parts of both countries when it declared a caliphate in 2014.

Iraqi warplanes and artillery have in the past pounded IS positions inside Syria after getting the green light from Syrian authorities.

The extremists have been defeated in Iraq but still hold a small area in Syria close to the Iraqi border.

On Saturday Assad received a letter from Iraq’s Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi calling for both countries’ coordination in “fighting terrorism.”

President Donald Trump announced earlier this month that the U.S. will withdraw all of its 2,000 forces in Syria. The main U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has expressed concerns that the U.S. plans to pull out could lead to the revival of IS saying that the extremists have not been defeated yet in Syria.

In Washington, Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he is going to encourage Trump to sit down with generals and reconsider pulling troops from Syria.

“Slow this down, make sure that we get it right, make sure ISIS never comes back,” Graham said on CNN using a different acronym to refer to IS. “Don’t turn Syria over to the Iranians. That’s a nightmare for Israel.”

Graham said that it’s possible for the U.S. to reduce its footprint in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and that he supports the goal of having allies “do more and pay more.” But he added that he also sees the U.S. military playing a role in all three countries for “a while to come.”

“I want to fight the war in the enemy’s backyard, not ours,” Graham said.

Graham has been a confidant of Trump’s, but it’s unclear how much Trump will listen to him on Syria. Still, Graham said he’s generally pleased with Trump’s foreign policy initiatives.

“All I ask him to do is to make sure we don’t fumble the ball inside the 10-yard line, sit down with the generals,” Graham said.

In Tehran, Iran and Syria signed Sunday a long-term strategic and economic agreement as the war winds down in Syria where Iran and Russia were the main backers of Assad’s government since the crisis began nearly eight years ago.

Syria’s SANA news agency quoted Syrian Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade Mohammed Samer al-Khalil, who signed the agreement, as saying that the deal includes “full cooperation on the financial and banking levels.” He added that this would allow Iranian companies to be present through investments in Syria.

The Syrian government has gained control of large parts of the country with the help of Iran and Russia and some Arab countries, including the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, have reopened their embassies in Damascus.

The Syrian government estimates reconstruction of the war-torn country will cost some $200 billion dollars and last 15 years.

Al-Khalil said that “priority in the reconstruction of Syria will be given to Iranian public and private companies,” according to SANA’s report.

SANA also reported that a technical delegation form the UAE visited Damascus International Airport to evaluate it in preparation for resumption of flights between the Gulf nation and Syria.

_____

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Kevin Freking in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Gaza: The Palestinians who died during the Great March of Return

One of the most enduring popular movements of 2018 has been the ongoing Great March of Return in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Since 30 March, thousands of Palestinians in the small coastal territory have demonstrated along the boundary with Israel, demanding the implementation of Palestinian refugees’ right of return and an end to the crippling 11-year siege of Gaza.

But such high-scale mobilisation has come at a high cost: according to Middle East Eye’s calculations, 190 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces within the scope of the demonstrations between 30 March and 30 November – equivalent to one Palestinian killed every 31 hours in eight months.

The numbers exclude more than 50 victims of air strikes or other Israeli military actions when demonstrations were not taking place.

The death toll peaked on 14 May – the day the US opened its embassy in Jerusalem – when 68 people were killed.

During that same time frame, more than 25,000 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. One Israeli soldier was also killed within the context of the March.

The Gaza Ministry of Health has identified and released the names, ages, and towns of Palestinians killed: from these, MEE has narrowed the list down to those killed during the protests.

While Israel has claimed that the protests have been orchestrated by Hamas, the de facto ruling party in Gaza that is deemed a terrorist organisation by Israel and the US, the organisers of the March have rejected these claims. For its part Hamas has not formally recognised any of the slain Palestinians as belonging to its organisation.

Among the dead are members of other Palestinian resistance groups – such as Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – as well as journalists, paramedics, farmers, people with disabilities and children. The UN General Assembly denounced Israel’s use of force against the demonstrators as “excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate”, while many rights groups slammed it as illegal, “horrifying” and “calculated”.

The extent of the fatalities may be daunting, but behind each number is an individual. Through the list below MEE has tried, as much as possible, to put a name, face and a story to the casualties of a protest movement that continues to this day.

March: The protest begins

A protester is treated near Khan Yunis on March 31 during the first weekend of the march (AFP)

The Great March of Return began on 30 March, when Palestinians commemorate Land Day, a day to denounce Israeli expropriation of Palestinian lands.

The demonstration drew thousands of people to tent encampments along the boundary between Gaza and Israel – but during that one day, Israeli forces fatally shot 19 Palestinians, five of whom succumbed to their wounds days later.

Ahmed al-Ayidi, 17, died four months and one week after being shot in the head, marking the longest gap between injury and death during the March.

1. Jihad Zuhair Abu Gamous, 30, from the Khan Younis governorate, was the first casualty of the Great March of Return. The father of four was shot in the head on 30 March and died in hospital shortly afterwards.

2. Mohammed Kamal al-Najjar, 25, from the North Gaza governorate, died on 30 March after being shot in the abdomen east of Jabaliya.

3. Ibrahim Salah Abu Shaar, 25, from the Rafah governorate, died on 30 March after being shot in the neck in Rafah.

4. Amin Mansour Abu Muammar, 22, from the Rafah governorate, died on 30 March after being shot in the head in Rafah.

5. Naji Abdullah Abu Hjeir, 25, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was killed on 30 March during protests near al-Bureij.

6. Abd al-Qader Mardy al-Hawajri, 42, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was killed on 30 March near the border east of the village of Juhr al-Deek.

7. Mahmoud Saadi Rahmi, 33, from the Gaza City governorate, died on 30 March after being shot in the chest east of Gaza City.

8. Mohammed Naim Abu Amro, 27, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot in the stomach and killed on 30 March near Jabaliya. At the time he was assisting an injured protester who had fallen to the ground. Abu Amro was a well-known artist in Gaza.

9. Ahmed Ibrahim Ashour Odeh, 19, from the Gaza City governorate, died on 30 March after being shot in the head east of Gaza City.

10. Jihad Ahmed Farina, 35, from the Gaza City governorate, died on 30 March after being shot in the head east of Gaza City.

11. Bader Fayeq al-Sabbagh, 22, from the North Gaza governorate, died on 30 March after being shot in the head east of Jabaliya. He was 300 metres from the boundary fence as he and his brother observed protests from a distance.

12. Abd al-Fattah Bahjat Abd al-Nabi, 18, from the North Gaza governorate, died on 30 March after being shot in the back. He was running away from the Gaza-Israel boundary east of Jabaliya, northern Gaza.

13. Sari Walid Abu Odeh, 27, a farmer from the North Gaza governorate, was killed on 30 March by artillery shells northeast of Beit Hanoun. He had tried to rescue injured protesters running towards the fields where he was working, 300 metres from the boundary fence.

14. Hamdan Ismail Abu Amsha, 23, another farmer from the North Gaza governorate, died on 30 March. He was killed by Israeli shelling alongside his colleague Sari Abu Odeh (above).

15. Faris Mahmoud Mohammed al-Raqab, 26, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot in the stomach on 30 March east of Khan Younis. He succumbed to his injuries on 2 April.

16. Shadi Hamdan al-Kashef, 34, from the Rafah governorate, was shot in the head on 30 March and succumbed to his injuries six days later on 5 April.

17. Thaer Mohammed Rabaa, 30, from the North Gaza governorate, was shot on 30 March and succumbed to his wounds a week later on 6 April.

18. Marwan Awad Qudeih, 45, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot with expanding bullets in the legs on 30 March near Khuzaa east of Khan Younis, fracturing bones and severing arteries. The father of seven succumbed to his wounds nine days later on 8 April.

19. Ahmed Jihad al-Ayidi, 17, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was shot in the head on 30 March in central Gaza. The teen was eventually transferred to a Palestinian hospital in the occupied West Bank on 24 April, but remained in critical condition until his death on 5 August, four months and a week later.

April: First full month of marches

Demonstrators tear away barbed wire along the fence separating Gaza from Israel (M Hajjar/MEE)

In the first full month of the March, demonstrators gathered at tent encampments on a daily basis.

Israeli forces fatally shot 25 Palestinians: among the dead were journalists Yasser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hussein.

20. Ahmed Omar Arafa, 25, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died on 3 April after being shot in the back and arm east of al-Bureij.

21. Mujahid Nabil al-Khudari, 23, from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 5 April by an Israeli drone during protests near the Erez border crossing.

22. Mohammed Sayid Moussa al-Hajj Saleh, 33, from the Rafah governorate, died on 6 April after being shot in the abdomen and chest east of Gaza City.

23. Alaa Yahya al-Zamili, 14, from the Rafah governorate, died on 6 April after being shot in the neck east of Rafah.

24. Sedqi Faraj Abu Etaiwi, 45, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died on 6 April after being shot in the neck east of al-Bureij.

25. Ibrahim Ziyad Salama al-Aur, 20, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died on 6 April after being shot in the head east of al-Bureij.

26. Hussein Mohammed Adnan Madi, 13, from the Gaza City governorate, died on 6 April after being shot in the stomach east of Gaza City. A day before his death, MEE photographer Mohammed al-Hajjar had taken a picture of the teenager.

27. Osama Khamis Qudeih, 39, from the Khan Younis governorate, died on 6 April after being shot in the head east of Khan Younis.

28. Majdi Ramadan Shabat, 38, from the North Gaza governorate, died on 6 April after being shot in the neck east of Gaza City.

29. Yasser Murtaja, 31, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot in the abdomen on 6 April. A photojournalist at Ain Media Production company, he was wearing a vest marked “Press” when he was shot. He succumbed to his wounds the following morning on 7 April in hospital, leaving behind a wife and a two-year-old son.

30. Hamza Abd al-Aal, 22, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was shot in the head on 6 April east of al-Bureij. He died the next day in hospital.

31. Abdullah Mohammed al-Shahri, 28, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot and killed by Israeli forces on 12 April.

32. Islam Mahmoud Haraz Allah, 28, from the North Gaza governorate, died on 13 April after being shot in the abdomen east of Gaza City.

33. Ahmed Mohammed Ashraf Abu Hussein, 26, a freelance photographer and journalist from the North Gaza governorate, was shot in the abdomen with an expanding bullet on 13 April east of Jabaliya while covering the protests. He was transferred to the West Bank then Israel for treatment but died on 24 May, 42 days after being shot.

34. Ahmed Rashad al-Athamna, 24, from the North Gaza governorate, died after being shot in the neck on 20 April east of Jabaliya.

35. Ahmed Nabil Abu Aql, 24, from the North Gaza governorate, was killed on 20 April with a bullet to the back of the head as he stood 150 metres from the boundary fence, according to witnesses. Abu Aql had been on crutches since December 2017, when he was shot in the leg during another demonstration.

36. Mohammed Ibrahim Ayoub, 14, from the North Gaza governorate, was killed on 20 April after being shot in the head with an expanding bullet east of Jabaliya.

37. Saad Abd al-Majid Abu Taha, 23, from the Khan Younis governorate, died on 20 April after being shot in the neck during protests east of Khan Younis.

38. Abdullah Mohammed Jibril al-Shamali, 20, from the Rafah governorate, was shot on 20 April while standing some 700 metres away from the boundary fence, succumbing to his wounds two days later on 22 April.

39. Tahrir Mahmoud Wahbah, 18, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot in the head on 20 April east of Khan Younis. Wahbah, who was deaf, was reportedly caught on camera when he was shot with his back turned to Israeli soldiers. He died from his wounds three days later on 23 April.

40. Abd al-Salam Eid Zuhdi Bakr, 33, from the Khan Younis governorate, was killed on 27 April after being shot in the stomach east of Khuzaa.

41. Mohammed Amin al-Maqid, 21 from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 27 April during protests east of Khan Younis.

42. Khalil Naim Mustafa Atallah, 22, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot and killed on 27 April east of Gaza City.

43. Azzam Hilal Uweida, 15, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot in the head on 27 April near Khuzaa. He succumbed to his injuries the following morning on 28 April.

44. Anas Shawqi Abu Assar, 19, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot on 27 April and succumbed to his wounds a week later on 3 May.

May: Scores killed in one day

A Palestinian carries away a fellow protester injured by Israeli fire on 14 May (AFP)

The Great March of Return was initially intended to end on 15 May, the 70th anniversary of the Nakba. But 14 May – the same day that the United States inaugurated its embassy to Israel in Jerusalem – turned out to be the be deadliest day of the March so far, accounting for more than one-third of casualties during the eight-month period.

In total, 73 Palestinians were fatally shot by Israeli forces during that month – 68 of them on 14 May. The bloodshed garnered international condemnation, and galvanised protesters to continue demonstrating for their rights.

45. Jabr Salem Abu Mustafa, 40, from the Khan Younis governorate, died on 11 May after being shot in the chest east of Khan Younis.

46. Jamal Abd al-Rahman Afana, 15, from the Rafah governorate, was shot by Israeli forces on 11 May and succumbed to his wounds a day later on 12 May.

47. Izz al-Din Moussa Mohammed al-Samak, 14, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was killed on 14 May by a bullet to the abdomen in central Gaza.

48. Wassal Fadel Izzat al-Sheikh Khalil, 15, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was killed on 14 May by a bullet to the head in central Gaza. She was the first of two Palestinian women to be killed by Israeli forces during the Great March of Return.

49. Ahmed Adel Moussa al-Shaer, 16, from the Khan Younis governorate, was killed on 14 May by a bullet to the chest east of Khan Younis. Islamic Jihad later announced that Shaer had been one of its members.

50. Sayid Mohammed Abu al-Kheir, 16, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot and killed on 14 May.

51. Imad Ali Sadeq al-Sheikh, 19, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot and killed on 14 May.

52. Zayed Mohammed Hassan Omar, 19, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot in the chest on 14 May east of Gaza City.

53. Mutasem Fawzi Mohammed Abu Luli, 20, from the Rafah governorate, was shot in the head on 14 May east of Rafah.

54. Anas Hamdan Salem Qudeih, 21, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot in the chest and killed on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

55. Mohammed Abd al-Salam Harraz, 21, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot and killed on 14 May.

56. Yahya Ismail Rajab al-Dakour, 22, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot and killed on 14 May.

57. Mustafa Mohammed Samir al-Masri, 22, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot and killed on 14 May east of Gaza City.

58. Izz al-Din Nahed Salman al-Uweiti, 23, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot in the head and killed on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

59. Mahmoud Mustafa Ahmed Assaf, 23, from the North Gaza governorate, was killed on 14 May.

60. Ahmed Fayez Harb Shehada, 23, from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 14 May.

61. Khalil Ismail Khalil Mansour, 25, from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 14 May.

62. Mohammed Ashraf Abu Sitta, 26, from the North Gaza governorate, was shot in the chest and killed on 14 May in northern Gaza.

63. Bilal Ahmed Saleh Abu Daqqa, 26, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot in the head and killed on 14 May east Khan Younis.

64. Ahmed Majed Qassem Attallah, 27, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot in the thigh, severing a main artery, on 14 May east of Gaza City. He died later that day.

65. Mahmoud Rabah Elayyan Abu Muammar, 28, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot in the head and killed on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

66. Musab Yousef Ibrahim Abu Leila, 28, from the Gaza City governorate, was hit by shrapnel in the back that penetrated his body below the heart on 14 May in the northern Gaza Strip. He died from his wounds on the same day.

67. Ahmed Fawzi Kamel al-Tater, 28, from the Rafah governorate, died after being shot in the shoulder and back on 14 May east of Rafah.

68. Ubeida Salem Abd Rabbo Farhan, 30, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot and killed on 14 May. Islamic Jihad later announced that Farhan had been a member of its al-Quds Brigades.

69. Jihad Mufid Abd al-Monim al-Farra, 30, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

70. Fadi Hassan Salman Abu Salmi, 30, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 14 May east of Khan Younis. Fadi had been using a wheelchair after his legs were amputated following an Israeli air strike in 2008. Islamic Jihad later announced that Farhan had been one of its members.

71. Motaz Bassam Kamel al-Nuno, 31, from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 14 May. He was reportedly a member of the Internal Security Department of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.

72. Mohammed Riyad Abd al-Rahman al-Amoudi, 31, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the head on 14 May.

73. Jihad Mohammed Osman Moussa, 31, from the North Gaza governorate, was killed on 14 May. He was reportedly a member of the Internal Security Department of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.

74. Shaher Mahmoud Mohammed al-Madhoun, 32, from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 14 May.

75. Moussa Jabr Abd al-Salam Abu Hassanin, 35, a paramedic from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 14 May while working for the Palestinian Authority Civil Defence Department treating wounded demonstrators.

76. Mohammed Mahmoud Abd al-Moti Abd al-Aal, 39, from the Rafah governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 14 May.

77. Ahmed Mohammed Ibrahim Hamdan, 27, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

78. Ismail Khalil Ramadan al-Dahouk, 30, from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 14 May.

79. Ahmed Mahmoud Mohammed Rantisi, 27, from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 14 May.

80. Mahmoud Yahya Abd al-Wahab Hussein, 24, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died after being shot in the abdomen on 14 May in the central Gaza Strip.

81. Ahmed Abdullah Abdullah al-Adini, 30, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died after being shot in the abdomen on 14 May in central Gaza.

82. Saadi Sayid Fahmi Abu Salah, 16, from the North Gaza governorate, died after being shot in the abdomen on 14 May in northern Gaza.

83. Ahmed Zuheir Hamed al-Shawa, 24, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 14 May east of Gaza City.

84. Mohammed Hani Husni al-Najjar, 33, from the North Gaza governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 14 May in northern Gaza.

85. Fadel Mohammed Atta Habashi, 34, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the neck on 14 May east of Gaza City.

86. Mahmoud Suleiman Ibrahim Aql, 32, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the knee and thigh on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

87. Mohammed Hassan Mustafa al-Abbadleh, 25, from the Khan Younis governorate, was killed on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

88. Mokhtar Kamel Abu Khamash, 23, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 14 May in central Gaza.

89. Abd al-Salam Yousef Abd al-Rahman Abd al-Wahab, 39, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the head on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

90. Ali Mohammed Ahmed Khafaja, 21, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the head on 14 May east of Rafah.

91. Mahmoud Hamad Saber Abu Touaima, 23, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the head on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

92. Kamel Jihad Kamel Muhanna, 19, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the head on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

93. Ahmed Salem Elayyan al-Jurf, 24, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the pelvis on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

94. Abd al-Rahman Sami Abu Matar, 18, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died after being shot in the head on 14 May east of Gaza City.

95. Mohammed Abd al-Rahman Ali Meqdad, 28, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the head on 14 May east of Khan Younis.

96. Mahmoud Wael Mahmoud Jundiya, 21, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 14 May east of Gaza City.

97. Mohammed Samir Mohammed Idweidar, 27, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died after being shot in the abdomen on 14 May in central Gaza.

98. Samer Nael Awni al-Shawa, 21, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the abdomen on 14 May east of Gaza City.

99. Yazan Ibrahim Mohammed Tubasi, 24, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the eye on 14 May east of Gaza City.

100. Imad Mohammed Khalil al-Nafar, 24, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being hit by shrapnel in the shoulder, neck and back on 14 May east of Gaza City.

101. Amr Jumaa Abu Foul, 32, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot on 14 May east of Gaza City and succumbed to his wounds the following day on 15 May.

102. Ahmed Abed Abu Samra, 21, from the North Gaza governorate, was shot on 14 May east of Jabaliya and died five days later on 19 May.

103. Mouin Abd al-Hamid al-Saie, 58, from the Gaza City governorate, was injured on 14 May and succumbed to his wounds five days later on 19 May.

104. Mohammed Mazen Elayyan, 20, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was shot in the head on 14 May east of al-Bureij and died five days later on 19 May.

105. Mohannad Bakr Abu Tahoun, 20, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was shot in the head on 14 May, and died in a West Bank hospital 10 days later on 24 May.

106. Yasser Sami Saad al-Din Habib, 24, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot on 14 May and died in a Jerusalem hospital 11 days later on 25 May.

107. Hussein Salem Abu Uwaida, 41, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot in the spine on 14 May as he was selling ice cream and water to demonstrators east of Gaza City, reportedly hundreds of metres away from the boundary fence. He succumbed to his wounds 12 days later on 26 May.

108. Nasser Aref Abd al-Raouf al-Areini, 28, from the North Gaza governorate, was shot on 14 May east of Jabaliya. He died from his wounds two weeks later on 28 May.

109. Naji Maysara Abdullah Ghneim, 22, from the Rafah governorate, was injured on 14 May east of Rafah. He succumbed to his wounds in a Jerusalem hospital 16 days later on 30 May.

110. Mohammed Naim Hamada, 30, from the North Gaza governorate, was shot on 14 May east of Gaza City. He died three weeks later on 3 June.

111. Mohammed Ghassan Abu Daqqa, 22, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot on 14 May east of Khuzaa town, and succumbed to his wounds in a Jerusalem hospital one month and one week later on 20 June.

112. Sari Dahoud al-Shobaki, 22, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot in the neck on 14 May, damaging his spinal cord and leaving him quadriplegic. His father, a doctor, accompanied him to Jerusalem where he was transferred for treatment, but Shobaki eventually died two months and five days later on 18 July.

113. Majd Suheil Mohammed Uqail, 26, from the North Gaza governorate, was shot on 14 May in northern Gaza, and succumbed to his wounds two months and 11 days later on 24 July.

114. Wissam Yousef Hijazi, 30, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot in the head on 14 May east of Khan Younis. He was referred to an Egyptian hospital for treatment, but died from his wounds three months later while waiting to cross at the Rafah Border Terminal between Gaza and Egypt on 12 August.

115. Talal Adel Ibrahim Matar, 16, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the head on 15 May east of Gaza City.

116. Nasser Ahmed Mahmoud Ghurab, 52, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 15 May.

117. Bilal Bdeir Hussein al-Ashram, 18, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the chest and leg on 15 May.

 

June: Medic among the dead

An Israeli tank at the Israel-Gaza border near Kibbutz Nahal Oz in June 2018 (AFP)

Israeli forces killed 13 Palestinians during protests, three of whom succumbed to their wounds later. The killing in particular of volunteer paramedic Razan al-Najjar sparked condemnation.

Meanwhile, some Palestinian demonstrators began flying incendiary kites and balloons into Israel, sparking fires during the dry season and dominating Israeli media coverage throughout the summer.

118. Razan Ashraf al-Najjar, 21, from the Khan Younis governorate, a volunteer paramedic, was shot in the chest on 1 June east of Khan Younis while helping wounded demonstrators. She was the second woman and second paramedic to be killed by Israeli forces.

119. Imad Nabil Abu Darabeh, 20, from the North Gaza governorate, was killed on 8 June east of Jabaliya.

120. Ziyad Jadallah Abd al-Qader al-Brim, 28, from the Khan Younis governorate, was killed on 8 June east of Khan Younis.

121. Haitham Khalil Mohammed al-Jamal, 15, from the Rafah governorate, was killed on 8 June east of Khan Younis.

122. Yousef Salim al-Fasih, 29, from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 8 June east of Gaza City.

123. Ahmed Ziyad Tawfiq al-Assi, 21, from the Khan Younis governorate was shot in the head on 8 June east of Khan Younis and succumbed to his wounds six days later, on 14 June.

124. Karam Ibrahim Arafat, 26, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot in the head on 8 June east of Khan Younis, dying from his wounds one month and 16 days later on 23 July.

125. Zakariya Hussein Bashbash, 13, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was shot on 15 June east of al-Bureij. He died from his wounds three days later on 18 June.

126. Sabri Ahmed Abu Khader, 24, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot and killed on 18 June east of Gaza City, only five months after getting married.

127. Osama Khalil Abu Khater, 29, from the Khan Younis governorate died after being shot in the stomach on 24 June east of Khan Younis.

128. Abd al-Fattah Mustafa Abu Azoum, 17, from the Rafah governorate, died after being shot in the head by Israeli tank fire while seeking to cross the boundary fence on 28 June near Rafah.

129. Mohammed Fawzi al-Hamayda, 24, from the Rafah governorate, was killed on 29 June east of al-Bureij.

130. Yasser Amjad Abu al-Naja, 12, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the head on 29 June east of Khuzaa.

July: Israeli law further drives protests

Relatives mourn Momen al-Hams, 17, at the Rafah refugee camp in July 2018 (AFP)

The protests increasingly took place on Fridays, as the summer heat and exhaustion took their toll on daily demonstrations.

Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians during protests in July while Aviv Levy, a 21-year-old Israeli soldier from Petah Tikva, was killed by a Palestinian sniper.

In an alleged bid to fight incendiary kites, Israel temporarily halted fuel deliveries to Gaza. It also launched several air strikes, which kill at least 11 people (their names are not included here).

On 19 July, the Knesset passes the nation-state law, which cemented in Israel’s Basic Law the country’s status as a Jewish state. This is denounced as further enshrining discrimination against Palestinians into Israeli legislation.

131. Mohammed Jamal Abu Halima, 22, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being hit by shrapnel in the chest on 6 July east of Gaza City.

132. Othman Rami Heles, 14, from the Gaza City governorate was shot and killed on 13 July east of Gaza City.

133. Ahmed Yahya Atallah Yaghi, 26, from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 13 July east of Gaza City.

134. Mohammed Nasser Shurrab, 20, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot on 13 July east of Khan Younis, succumbing to his wounds the next day, on 14 July.

135. Amjad Fayez Hamduna, 19, from the North Gaza governorate, was shot on 14 July east of Jabaliya, dying 25 days later, on 7 August

136. Mohammed Sharif Badwan, 24, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the chest east of Gaza City.

137. Majdi Ramzi al-Satari, 12, from the Rafah governorate, died after being shot in the head on 27 July east of Rafah.

138. Ghazi Mohammed Abu Mustafa, 44, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the head on 27 July east of Khan Younis. He had also been injured in protests the previous month.

139. Moamin Fathi al-Hams, 17, from the Rafah governorate, was shot in the chest on 27 July east of Rafah. He died from his wounds the following day on 28 July.

August: The truce that never was

Tear gas rains down on a demonstrator hurling stones near Gaza City in August 2018 (AFP)

Seven Palestinians died during August, including medic Abdullah al-Qutati, and Ali al-Aloul, who at 65 was the oldest fatal casualty of the March.

Meanwhile, the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas intensified, with deadly air strikes and rocket fire. Egypt attempted to mediate a long-lasting truce between the two parties – much to the Palestinian Authority’s displeasure. In the end the much-discussed ceasefire amounted to nothing.

140. Moath Zayid al-Suri, 15, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was shot in the stomach on 3 August east of al-Bureij, succumbing to his wounds the following day on 4 August.

141. Suheib Abd al-Salam al-Kashif, 16, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot on 3 August east of Khan Younis. He died one month and 13 days later on 15 September.

142. Abdullah Sabri al-Qutati, 22, a volunteer paramedic from the Rafah governorate, was shot and killed on 10 August while providing medical care to a demonstrator, Ali al-Aloul (below), who had just been hit by live ammunition and also died that same day.

143. Ali Sayid al-Aloul, 65, from the Rafah governorate, died after being shot on 10 August east of Rafah. In addition to being the oldest Palestinian killed by Israeli forces during the March, paramedic Abdullah al-Qutati (above), was fatally shot while attempting to save Aloul’s life.

144. Ahmed Jamal Salim Abu Luli, 41, from the Rafah governorate, died after being shot in the abdomen on 11 August east of Rafah.

145. Saadi Akram Muammar, 27, from the Rafah governorate, was shot and killed on 17 August near Rafah. His wife was seven months pregnant at the time with their third child.

146. Karim Abu Fatayer, 28, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the head – with a bullet that went through his eye – on 25 August east of al-Bureij.

September: Casualties rise again

Medics treat a Palestinian boy wounded during a protest in September 2018 (Reuters)

After a slow-down in deaths during the summer, fatalities related to the Great March rose again as Egyptian efforts for a Hamas-Israel deal seemingly collapsed.

Israeli forces fatally shot 20 Palestinians in September, including 11-year-old Shadi Abd al-Aal, the youngest fatality of the March.

Meanwhile, the United States announced that it was cutting all its funding to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, sparking employee strikes.

Palestinians in Gaza also marked with bitterness the 25th anniversary of the Oslo Accords.

147. Bilal Mustafa Khafaja, 17, from the Rafah governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 7 September east of Rafah.

148. Ahmed Musbah Abu Tuyur, 16, from the Rafah governorate, was shot on 7 September east of Rafah city, succumbing to his wounds a day later on 8 September. A video shared on social media – whose authenticity could not be confirmed by MEE – purported to show the teen’s death.

149. Mohammed Bassam Mohammed Shakhsa, 25, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the head on 13 September east of Gaza City.

150. Shadi Abd al-Aziz Abd al-Aal, 11, from the North Gaza governorate, died after being shot in the head on 14 September east of Jabaliya as he was reportedly throwing stones some 70 metres from the boundary – too far to reach soldiers stationed behind the fence. He is the youngest Palestinian killed by Israeli forces during the March of Return so far.

151. Hani Ramzi Afana, 21, from the Rafah governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 14 September east of Rafah.

152. Mohammed Khalil Ghazi Shaqura, 21, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 14 September east of al-Bureij.

153. Naji Jamil Abu Assi, 17, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being hit by an Israeli missile on 18 September east of Khan Younis, alongside his cousin Alaa Abu Assi (below).

154. Alaa Ziyad Abu Assi, 20, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being hit by an Israeli missile on 18 September east of Khan Younis, alongside his cousin Naji Abu Assi (above).

155. Mohammed Ahmed Abu Naji, 33, from the North Gaza governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 18 September near Beit Hanoun.

156. Ahmed Mohammed Muhsin Omar, 23, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 18 September near Beit Hanoun, only one day before his birthday.

157. Moamin Ibrahim Abu Eyada, 15, from the Rafah governorate, died after being shot in the head on 19 September east of Rafah.

158. Karim Mohammed Ali Kollab, 25, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot on 21 September east of Gaza City.

159. Imad Woud Ishteiwi, 21, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the head on 23 September east of Gaza City.

160. Mohammed Fayez Salim Abu al-Sadaq, 21, from the Gaza City governorate, was killed on 24 September in northern Gaza.

161. Mohammed Nayef al-Houm, 14, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died after being shot in the lower back on 28 September east of al-Bureij.

162. Mohammed Ashraf al-Awawdeh, 23, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 28 September near al-Bureij.

163. Iyad Khalil Ahmed al-Shaer, 18, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 28 September east of Gaza City. 

164. Mohammed Walid Mustafa Haniyeh, 32, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the face on 28 September east of Gaza City.

165. Nasser Azmi Mohammed Musbeh, 12, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the head on 28 September east of Khan Yunis.

166. Mohammed Ali Mohammed al-Anshasi, 19, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the stomach on 28 September near al-Bureij.

October: Calls for Gaza crackdown

An Israeli army drone becomes entangled with balloons released by Palestinian protesters in October 2018 (AFP)

Gaza’s ministry of health recorded 22 Palestinian fatalities relating to the Great March in October, as far-right Israeli politicians called for a stronger crackdown on the protests and a “strong blow” against Hamas – up to and including the possibility of all-out war.

The Israeli army launched nearly 90 air strikes on 27 October alone in the highest-intensity offensive on Gaza since the summer, with Palestinian factions firing some 35 rockets.

Meanwhile Qatar stepped in financially to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza with Israel’s approval, paying for fuel imports and civil servant salaries.

167. Ahmed Samir Abu Habil, 15, from the north Gaza governorate, died after he was hit by a high-velocity tear gas canister that lodged itself in his head on 3 October near Beit Hanoun.

168. Mahmoud Akram Mohammed Abu Samaan, 24, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 5 October east of Gaza City.

169. Fares Hafez al-Sirsawi, 13, from the Gaza City governorate, died after being shot in the chest on 5 October east of Gaza City.

170. Hussein Fathi al-Raqab, 19, from the Khan Younis governorate, died after being shot in the head on 6 October near Khan Younis.

171. Abdullah Barham Suleiman al-Daghmeh, 24, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot and killed on 12 October.

172. Ahmed Abdullah Abu Naim, 17, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was shot and killed on 12 October.

173. Ahmed Ibrahim Zaki al-Tawil, 27, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was shot and killed on 12 October.

174. Mohammed Abd al-Hafez Yousef Ismail, 29, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, was shot and killed on 12 October.

175. Tamer Iyad Abu Ermana, 21, from the Rafah governorate, was shot and killed on 12 October.

176. Mohammed Ashraf Mohammed al-Awada, 21, from the Rafah governorate, was shot and killed on 12 October. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PFLP) announced after his death that he had been a member.

177. Afifi Mahmoud Atta Afifi, 18, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot and killed on 12 October.

178. Mohammed Issam Abbas, 21, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot and killed on 12 October.

179. Saddam al-Abed Mohammed Abu Shalash, 27, from the North Gaza governorate, was shot on 15 October near Beit Lahiya, succumbing to his wounds a day later on 16 October.

180. Muntaser Mohammed Ismail al-Baz, 17, from the Deir al-Balah governorate, died after being shot in the head on 23 October near al-Bureij.

181. Mohammed Khaled Mahmoud Abd al-Nabi, 27, from the North Gaza governorate, was killed on 26 October east of Jabaliya.

182. Nassar Iyad Abu Tim, 19, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot and killed on 26 October east of Khan Younis.

183. Ahmed Sayid Abu Lubda, 22, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot and killed on 26 October east of Khan Younis.

184. Ayesh Ghassan Shaat, 23, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot and killed on 26 October east of Khan Younis.

185. Mujahid Ziyad Zaki Aql, 23, from the Deir al-Balah governorate was shot on 26 October and succumbed to his wounds a day later on 27 October.

186. Yahya Bader Mohammed al-Hassanat, 37, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot in the head on 26 October east of al-Bureij. He died from his wounds two days later on 28 October.

187. Ahmed Khaled al-Najjar, 21, from the Khan Younis governorate, was shot in the stomach with an expanding bullet on 26 October east of Khan Younis, succumbing to his wounds 13 days later in a hospital in the West Bank, on 7 November.

188. Mohammed Abd al-Hay Abu Ubada, 27, from the Gaza City governorate, was shot and killed on 30 October near Beit Lahiya. Abu Ubada had been injured three times since the beginning of the March of Return.

November: Israeli raid

A Palestinian flagbearer runs through teargas near Gaza City in November 2018 (AFP)

The expectation might be that the situation in Gaza was relatively calm in November, given that there were only two fatalities related to the Great March.

Far from it. On 11 November, an undercover Israeli squad was discovered deep inside Gaza, sparking a deadly exchange of fire and the subsequent resignation of Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman in protest at a ceasefire agreement. Meanwhile, Hollywood stars collected $60m for the Israeli army in a highly criticised fundraising gala.

189. Mohammed Alaa Mahmoud Abu Shabin, 20, from the Rafah governorate, was shot and killed on 8 November east of al-Maghazi refugee camp.

190. Rami Wael Ishaq Qahman, 28, from the Rafah governorate, died after being shot in the neck on 9 November east of Rafah.

Photo credits

March: Israel-Palestine Timeline: 1-3, 5, 6, 10-15, 18, 19; International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC): 7-9, 16. April: Israel-Palestine Timeline: 23, 25, 26, 28, 31, 34, 37, 42; IMEMC: 20, 21, 29, 32, 35, 38, 41, 43, 44; Middle East Eye: 33; Ma’an News Agency: 39; social media: 40. May: Israel-Palestine Timeline: 45, 48- 50, 53-57, 60-62, 69, 70-76, 78-80, 83, 84, 90, 101, 108, 113; IMEMC: 46, 47, 103-107, 109-112, 114, 115. June: Israel-Palestine Timeline: 122, 130; IMEMC: 119-121, 123, 124, 127, 128; Middle East Eye: 118; Defense for Children Palestine: 125. July: Israel-Palestine Timeline: 131, 137, 138; IMEMC: 134, 135, 136, 139. August: IMEMC: 140, 141, 143, 144, 146; Middle East Eye: 142. September: Israel-Palestine Timeline: 151-156; IMEMC: 147, 149, 157-166. October: Israel-Palestine Timeline: 168-175, 177, 183-186, 188; IMEMC: 167, 178, 180. November: Israel-Palestine Timeline: 189, 190.

Biography credits

Middle East Eye, Israel-Palestine Timeline, International Middle East Media Center, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Al-Haq, Electronic Intifada. Should you notice any factual inaccuracies or have information about some of the people listed in this article, please contact us here.

China’s New Submarine-Launched Nuclear Missile Can Hit the U.S.

With just an estimated 300 nuclear warheads compared to the approximately 7,000 fielded by both the U.S. and Russia, China’s nuclear arsenal is comparatively small. But even a few Chinese H-bombs could wreak tremendous damage to the United States.

China has tested a new submarine-launched missile that can hit the United States.

The first flight test of the JL-3 missile was conducted in November from Bohai Bay in the Yellow Sea, according to the South China Morning Post , citing an unnamed source.

“The new missile has a flight range of about 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles), which is less than the 12,000-kilometer (7,500-mile) range of the American Trident II and Russian Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs),” the Post reported. This would give the JL-3, which can be armed with multiple warheads, a range of about 500 to 1,000 miles greater than its predecessor, the JL-2.

The distance between Shanghai and Honolulu is about 4,900 miles, which would put Hawaii within range of Chinese sub-launched missiles, and about 6,100 miles to San Francisco and 7,400 miles to Washington, D.C. However, unlike land-based ICBMs, Chinese subs can sail closer to the American mainland to put U.S. cities within range. Though definite information on China’s missile submarine fleet is elusive, the Pentagon estimates that China now has four Jin-class subs with 12 JL-2 missiles apiece. These will be followed in the 2020s by the Type 096-class, which will be armed with the JL-3.

But China seems to be signaling that it doesn’t want to embark on an arms race with America. The South China Morning Post , based in the Chinese special administrative region of Hong Kong, cited several Chinese experts who said the missiles were intended as a deterrent and bargaining chip in China’s fraught relationship with the U.S.

“Beijing will only develop a small number of SSBNs [ballistic missile submarines] and submarine-launched ballistic missiles because its main focus is to make sure the PLA has the most effective and powerful second-strike counter-attack capability in the event that the country is hit by nuclear weapons,” one expert said.

Interestingly, the Post’s source suggested that Chinese sub-launched missiles have a shorter range than American or Russian models because of issues with China’s ballistic missile submarines. “The JL SLBMs have a shorter range because the Chinese military has so far failed to make any significant technology breakthroughs in developing nuclear-powered submarines,” the source said. Chinese experts also suggested that the JL-3 has yet to achieve full range.

If China could boost the JL-3’s range to 7,500 miles, like the Trident, then it could reach the entire United States from subs stationed in waters near the Chinese coast. China maintains Russian-style “bastions” where SSBNs can lurk under the protection of Chinese air and naval forces.

One Chinese expert said a missile that could hit the entire U.S. could be fielded within four years, as the Type 096 subs are deployed. Chinese land-based ICBMs already have sufficient range to do this.

With just an estimated 300 nuclear warheads compared to the approximately 7,000 fielded by both the U.S. and Russia, China’s nuclear arsenal is comparatively small. But even a few Chinese H-bombs could wreak tremendous damage to the United States.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

Brace Yourselves, New Yorkers, You’re Due for a Major Quake

A couple of hundred thousand years ago, an M 7.2 earthquake shook what is now New Hampshire. Just a few thousand years ago, an M 7.5 quake ruptured just off the coast of Massachusetts. And then there’s New York.

Since the first western settlers arrived there, the state has witnessed 200 quakes of magnitude 2.0 or greater, making it the third most seismically active state east of the Mississippi (Tennessee and South Carolina are ranked numbers one and two, respectively). About once a century, New York has also experienced an M 5.0 quake capable of doing real damage.

The most recent one near New York City occurred in August of 1884. Centered off Long Island’s Rockaway Beach, it was felt over 70,000 square miles. It also opened enormous crevices near the Brooklyn reservoir and knocked down chimneys and cracked walls in Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Police on the Brooklyn Bridge said it swayed “as if struck by a hurricane” and worried the bridge’s towers would collapse. Meanwhile, residents throughout New York and New Jersey reported sounds that varied from explosions to loud rumblings, sometimes to comic effect. At the funeral of Lewis Ingler, a small group of mourners were watching as the priest began to pray. The quake cracked an enormous mirror behind the casket and knocked off a display of flowers that had been resting on top of it. When it began to shake the casket’s silver handles, the mourners decided the unholy return of Lewis Ingler was more than they could take and began flinging themselves out windows and doors.

Not all stories were so light. Two people died during the quake, both allegedly of fright. Out at sea, the captain of the brig Alice felt a heavy lurch that threw him and his crew, followed by a shaking that lasted nearly a minute. He was certain he had hit a wreck and was taking on water.

A day after the quake, the editors of The New York Times sought to allay readers’ fear. The quake, they said, was an unexpected fluke never to be repeated and not worth anyone’s attention: “History and the researches of scientific men indicate that great seismic disturbances occur only within geographical limits that are now well defined,” they wrote in an editorial. “The northeastern portion of the United States . . . is not within those limits.” The editors then went on to scoff at the histrionics displayed by New York residents when confronted by the quake: “They do not stop to reason or to recall the fact that earthquakes here are harmless phenomena. They only know that the solid earth, to whose immovability they have always turned with confidence when everything else seemed transitory, uncertain, and deceptive, is trembling and in motion, and the tremor ceases long before their disturbed minds become tranquil.”

That’s the kind of thing that drives Columbia’s Heather Savage nuts.

New York, she says, is positively vivisected by faults. Most of them fall into two groups—those running northeast and those running northwest. Combined they create a brittle grid underlying much of Manhattan.

Across town, Charles Merguerian has been studying these faults the old‐fashioned way: by getting down and dirty underground. He’s spent the past forty years sloshing through some of the city’s muckiest places: basements and foundations, sewers and tunnels, sometimes as deep as 750 feet belowground. His tools down there consist primarily of a pair of muck boots, a bright blue hard hat, and a pickax. In public presentations, he claims he is also ably abetted by an assistant hamster named Hammie, who maintains his own website, which includes, among other things, photos of the rodent taking down Godzilla.

That’s just one example why, if you were going to cast a sitcom starring two geophysicists, you’d want Savage and Merguerian to play the leading roles. Merguerian is as eccentric and flamboyant as Savage is earnest and understated. In his press materials, the former promises to arrive at lectures “fully clothed.” Photos of his “lab” depict a dingy porta‐john in an abandoned subway tunnel. He actively maintains an archive of vintage Chinese fireworks labels at least as extensive as his list of publications, and his professional website includes a discography of blues tunes particularly suitable for earthquakes. He calls female science writers “sweetheart” and somehow manages to do so in a way that kind of makes them like it (although they remain nevertheless somewhat embarrassed to admit it).

It’s Merguerian’s boots‐on‐the‐ground approach that has provided much of the information we need to understand just what’s going on underneath Gotham. By his count, Merguerian has walked the entire island of Manhattan: every street, every alley. He’s been in most of the tunnels there, too. His favorite one by far is the newest water tunnel in western Queens. Over the course of 150 days, Merguerian mapped all five miles of it. And that mapping has done much to inform what we know about seismicity in New York.

Most importantly, he says, it provided the first definitive proof of just how many faults really lie below the surface there. And as the city continues to excavate its subterranean limits, Merguerian is committed to following closely behind. It’s a messy business.

Down below the city, Merguerian encounters muck of every flavor and variety. He power‐washes what he can and relies upon a diver’s halogen flashlight and a digital camera with a very, very good flash to make up the difference. And through this process, Merguerian has found thousands of faults, some of which were big enough to alter the course of the Bronx River after the last ice age.

His is a tricky kind of detective work. The center of a fault is primarily pulverized rock. For these New York faults, that gouge was the very first thing to be swept away by passing glaciers. To do his work, then, he’s primarily looking for what geologists call “offsets”—places where the types of rock don’t line up with one another. That kind of irregularity shows signs of movement over time—clear evidence of a fault.

Merguerian has found a lot of them underneath New York City.

These faults, he says, do a lot to explain the geological history of Manhattan and the surrounding area. They were created millions of years ago, when what is now the East Coast was the site of a violent subduction zone not unlike those present now in the Pacific’s Ring of Fire.

Each time that occurred, the land currently known as the Mid‐Atlantic underwent an accordion effect as it was violently folded into itself again and again. The process created immense mountains that have eroded over time and been further scoured by glaciers. What remains is a hodgepodge of geological conditions ranging from solid bedrock to glacial till to brittle rock still bearing the cracks of the collision. And, says Merguerian, any one of them could cause an earthquake.

You don’t have to follow him belowground to find these fractures. Even with all the development in our most built‐up metropolis, evidence of these faults can be found everywhere—from 42nd Street to Greenwich Village. But if you want the starkest example of all, hop the 1 train at Times Square and head uptown to Harlem. Not far from where the Columbia University bus collects people for the trip to the Lamont‐Doherty Earth Observatory, the subway tracks seem to pop out of the ground onto a trestle bridge before dropping back down to earth. That, however, is just an illusion. What actually happens there is that the ground drops out below the train at the site of one of New York’s largest faults. It’s known by geologists in the region as the Manhattanville or 125th Street Fault, and it runs all the way across the top of Central Park and, eventually, underneath Long Island City. Geologists have known about the fault since 1939, when the city undertook a massive subway mapping project, but it wasn’t until recently that they confirmed its potential for a significant quake.

In our lifetimes, a series of small earthquakes have been recorded on the Manhattanville Fault including, most recently, one on October 27, 2001. Its epicenter was located around 55th and 8th—directly beneath the original Original Soupman restaurant, owned by restaurateur Ali Yeganeh, the inspiration for Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi. That fact delighted sitcom fans across the country, though few Manhattanites were in any mood to appreciate it.

The October 2001 quake itself was small—about M 2.6—but the effect on residents there was significant. Just six weeks prior, the city had been rocked by the 9/11 terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center towers. The team at Lamont‐Doherty has maintained a seismic network in the region since the ’70s. They registered the collapse of the first tower at M 2.1. Half an hour later, the second tower crumbled with even more force and registered M 2.3. In a city still shocked by that catastrophe, the early‐morning October quake—several times greater than the collapse of either tower—jolted millions of residents awake with both reminders of the tragedy and fear of yet another attack. 9‐1‐1 calls overwhelmed dispatchers and first responders with reports of shaking buildings and questions about safety in the city. For seismologists, though, that little quake was less about foreign threats to our soil and more about the possibility of larger tremors to come.

Remember: The Big Apple has experienced an M 5.0 quake about every hundred years. The last one was that 1884 event. And that, says Merguerian, means the city is overdue. Just how overdue?

“Gee whiz!” He laughs when I pose this question. “That’s the holy grail of seismicity, isn’t it?”

He says all we can do to answer that question is “take the pulse of what’s gone on in recorded history.” To really have an answer, we’d need to have about ten times as much data as we do today. But from what he’s seen, the faults below New York are very much alive.

“These guys are loaded,” he tells me.

He says he is also concerned about new studies of a previously unknown fault zone known as the Ramapo that runs not far from the city. Savage shares his concerns. They both think it’s capable of an M 6.0 quake or even higher—maybe even a 7.0. If and when, though, is really anybody’s guess.

“We literally have no idea what’s happening in our backyard,” says Savage.

What we do know is that these quakes have the potential to do more damage than similar ones out West, mostly because they are occurring on far harder rock capable of propagating waves much farther. And because these quakes occur in places with higher population densities, these eastern events can affect a lot more people. Take the 2011 Virginia quake: Although it was only a moderate one, more Americans felt it than any other one in our nation’s history.

That’s the thing about the East Coast: Its earthquake hazard may be lower than that of the West Coast, but the total effect of any given quake is much higher. Disaster specialists talk about this in terms of risk, and they make sense of it with an equation that multiplies the potential hazard of an event by the cost of damage and the number of people harmed. When you take all of those factors into account, the earthquake risk in New York is much greater than, say, that in Alaska or Hawaii or even a lot of the area around the San Andreas Fault.

Merguerian has been sounding the alarm about earthquake risk in the city since the ’90s. He admits he hasn’t gotten much of a response. He says that when he first proposed the idea of seismic risk in New York City, his fellow scientists “booed and threw vegetables” at him. He volunteered his services to the city’s Office of Emergency Management but says his original offer also fell on deaf ears.

“So I backed away gently and went back to academia.”

Today, he says, the city isn’t much more responsive, but he’s getting a much better response from his peers.

He’s glad for that, he says, but it’s not enough. If anything, the events of 9/11, along with the devastation caused in 2012 by Superstorm Sandy, should tell us just how bad it could be there.

He and Savage agree that what makes the risk most troubling is just how little we know about it. When it comes right down to it, intraplate faults are the least understood. Some scientists think they might be caused by mantle flow deep below the earth’s crust. Others think they might be related to gravitational energy. Still others think quakes occurring there might be caused by the force of the Atlantic ridge as it pushes outward. Then again, it could be because the land is springing back after being compressed thousands of years ago by glaciers (a phenomenon geologists refer to as seismic rebound).

“We just have no consciousness towards earthquakes in the eastern United States,” says Merguerian. “And that’s a big mistake.”

Adapted from Quakeland: On the Road to America’s Next Devastating Earthquake by Kathryn Miles, published by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2017 by Kathryn Miles.

One Palestinian killed, six injured at eastern borders of Gaza

News Code : 922643

One Palestinian was killed and at least six others were injured as Israeli forces suppressed the weekly Great March of Return protests at the eastern borders of the besieged Gaza Strip, on Friday.

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): One Palestinian was killed and at least six others were injured as Israeli forces suppressed the weekly Great March of Return protests at the eastern borders of the besieged Gaza Strip, on Friday.

Spokesperson of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qidra, said that Karam Muhammad Fayyad, 26, from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, was succumbed Friday evening to wounds he sustained during protests.

Israeli forces used live bullets and rubber-coated steel bullets to suppress protesters who had gathered at return camps at the eastern borders of Gaza.

One journalist, a paramedic and a child were among those injured.

“The Great March of Return” protests were launched on March 30th by thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza — which has suffered from a decade-long Israeli siege — who took to the borders to demand their right of return as refugees to their original homelands, now in present-day Israel.

World War 3 fears EXPLODE as Russia tests new NUCLEAR bomber for first time

James Bickerton

| UPDATED: 13:39, Sat, Dec 29, 2018

FEARS of conflict between major world powers surged after Russia tested a newly ungraded supersonic long-range bomber, which is capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Russia building Caribbean military base is ‘unsafe’ warns adviser

On Friday the Tupolev Tu-22M3M supersonic bomber flew for the first time. The aircraft can reportedly hit targets as far as 2,200km away (1,367 miles). Russia is modernising its armed forces as part of a programme overseen by President Vladimir Putin.

Quoting a defence source the Russian state-run Tass News Agency reported: “The first upgraded Tu-22M3M made the debut flight from the airfield of the Kazan-based Gorbunov Aircraft Enterprise on Friday.

“The flight started the missile-carrying bomber’s flight tests.

“There were no weapons about the aircraft, and the flight was brief.”

The aircraft was reportedly in the air for 37 minutes reaching 4,920 feet in height.

The aircraft was reportedly in the air for 37 minutes reaching 4,920 feet in height (Image: GETTY )

The Tu-22M3M takes off for its first test flight (Image: SPUTNIK )

The Tu-22M3M, the latest in a long line of TU-22 bombers, was first unveiled in August.

In 1962, the original TU-22 was launched as the Soviet Union’s first long ranged bomber.

Another modified version of the aircraft, the Tu-22M3, has been active in Syria.

Aircraft manufacturer Tupolev commented: “The first prototype Tu-22M3M aircraft was created as part of a large-scale modernisation programme.

The Tupolev Tu-22M3M was first unveiled in August (Image: GETTY )

“The next stage of the programme is the modernisation of the first batch of Tu-22M3 combat aircraft.”

Russia has been undertaking a major modernisation of its military over the past few years, overseen personally by President Vladimir Putin.

The US claims Russia violated the Intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty (INF) by developing a surface-to-air missile which exceed its maximum allowed range.

In response, America is threatening to withdraw from the INF, in a move which could trigger a new global arms race.

FILE Photo: The Iron Dome missile defense system intercepting a rocket in southern Israel. Ilan Asayag

Israeli Army Strikes Hamas Target After Rocket Launched From Gaza Strip

No casualties or damage have been reported in what is the first flare-up along the border in over a month and a half

Almog Ben Zikri

29.12.2018 |

An Israel Defense Force helicopter struck a Hamas target in southern Gaza late Friday night after a rocket was launched from the Strip into Israel, the IDF said in an official statement.  

The rocket launched from Gaza fell in an open area and no casualties or damages were reported in Israel’s southern communities. 

Earlier Friday a 26-year-old Palestinian was killed and four others were wounded by Israeli military fire during weekly protests in Gaza. 

According to Gaza authorities, Karam Fayyad was shot during a demonstration east of Khan Yunis. He was rushed to hospital in critical state, but was later pronounced dead. 

Last week, four Palestinians were killed in protests at the Gaza border, including one who succumbed to his wounds on Saturday. 

Since the Gaza border protests began in March, around 240 Palestinians died in confrontations with the Israeli military, according to Gaza authorities. 

This is the first incident of rocket fire since over a month and a half ago when some 460 rockets and missiles were fired from Gaza into Israel. The IDF retaliated by attacking more than 160 targets including buildings belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, killing a total of seven in the Gaza Strip