Waching daily May 14 2018

When I stumbled across a high school graduation in Gaza City,

it was disorienting.

I could have been in Southern California

or suburban New Jersey.

Eager, excited kids in their caps and gowns.

And then, a big dance party.

But these graduates of Gaza's American International School

are the privileged few, the sons and daughters

of the elite.

They've come of age in a place that's

been under blockade since they were 7 years old.

And even they can't be sure that they'll ever get out.

The other 99 percent of Gazans are far worse off.

They're stuck here in one of the most densely populated places

on earth, with little or no work, sporadic electricity,

filthy water and worsening public health.

The most acute shortage is of hope.

Since March, thousands have gathered

in protests demanding a right of return

to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel.

The protests were the idea of a young activist.

He imagined masses of people camping out peacefully

along the Israeli fence that hems in Gaza,

then knocking it over and walking across,

making a point if nothing else.

But he lost control of what he had started.

Hamas, the militant group that has run Gaza since 2007,

took over.

The demonstrations gave Hamas

a way to put themselves on the side of their

frustrated constituents and rage against a common enemy:

Israel.

The protest camps set up along the fence

can make you do a double take.

In parts, they look like a community festival,

a carnival, a fair,

like a distant cousin to Burning Man.

Women prepare falafel sandwiches.

Barbers give haircuts and trim beards.

Lip synchers and dancers perform in the shade.

Actors ham it up playing cruel Israeli soldiers.

Families come with their children.

It all seems like fun, but closer to the fence,

it looks more like a battle.

The protesters, mostly young men, but some women

and boys too, want to break through the barrier

separating them from Israel.

The soldiers are determined to stop them.

Scores have been killed so far in Gaza.

Thousands have been injured.

Hamas calls the protests peaceful —

because nobody is firing rifles or rockets,

they say.

But Israel sees some in the crowds throwing

grenades and Molotov cocktails.

The protesters have organized themselves

into teams — of rock throwers with their slings,

the wire cutters who drag away coils of barbed wire.

And the tire teams who collect and then burn tires

to create a smokescreen against sniper fire.

Other squads turn toys into firebombs.

Rags soaked in gasoline are tied to frilly kites

and sent flying toward Israel.

Acres of farmland and forest have burned.

Ambulance crews circle in a loop, waiting

until they hear gunshots,

and running when they see someone fall.

Nearby, doctors and nurses in hospital tents

tend to the wounded.

What the protests can achieve is unclear.

The organizers talk about increasing

international pressure on Israel to lift the siege of Gaza,

and it seems like nothing would do more

to accomplish that than a tremendous body count.

It's all meant to ramp up to a climactic conclusion

over two days:

May 14, with the U.S. Embassy's move to Jerusalem

on the 70th anniversary of the state of Israel,

and May 15, when Palestinians remember that history

as the Nakba, a catastrophe.

The head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar,

now says that the protests will continue indefinitely

until, he says, "We break the siege."