Aed Abu Amro (Arabic : عائد أبو عمرو) is a Palestinian man from Zeitoun, Gaza. In 2018, a photo of him hurling a rock during the Great March of Return protest against Israeli blockade, taken by photojournalist Mustafa Hassona on 22 October 2018, went viral and became a symbol of Palestinian resistance. The photo has been compared to the 1830 French revolutionary painting Liberty Leading the People .
The blockade of the Gaza Strip is an ongoing land, air and sea blockade imposed by both Israel and Egypt since 2007, [1] [2] which has severely limited the movement of people and goods into and out of the territory, leading to a humanitarian crisis that has had a devastating impact on the population of Gaza. [1] The blockade has been the subject of international criticism and has been condemned by numerous human rights organizations for its detrimental effects on the civilian population. [3] The blockade has also been a major source of tension between Israel and the Palestinians and has contributed to the ongoing conflicts in the region. [4]
Aed Abu Amro, a Palestinian from Zeitoun in the Gaza Strip, was a regular participant in the weekly "Great March of Return" protests, which began in 2018 and called for an end to the Israeli blockade on Gaza, and the right for Palestinian refugees to return to their ancestral homes. [5]
Abu Amro was photographed by Mustafa Hassona during the Great March of Return protest in Gaza [6] [7] on 22 October 2018, [8] [9] and the image went viral shortly after its creation. [9] The picture shows Amro bare-chested, holding a Palestinian flag in one hand, while hurling a sling with the other hand over his head. He appears to be standing in front of a cloud of smoke, and the intensity of his gaze and the determination in his posture have made the photo an iconic symbol of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice. [9] [10] [8] [11] [12]
The photo was compared to Liberty Leading the People by French painter Eugene Delacroix, which allegorically depicts the July Revolution of 1830 that overthrew King Charles X. [13] [14] Some interpreted the imagery as a representation of a biblical tale of David versus Goliath, [8] whereas others considered the depiction to be a celebration of violence, as some reports have referred to Abu Amro as a "Palestinian extremist" and linked him to riots on the border between Gaza and Israel. [15] One commentator said that the oppression of Palestinians is not something that can be romanticised or viewed through a poetic lens, as the reality of life in Gaza is one of constant suffering and loss. [16]
Abu Amro was reportedly shot in the leg by an Israeli sniper in November 2018 while participating in a demonstration in support of the Just Future For Palestine Flotilla, which set sail to challenge Israel's naval blockade. [17] [18] He was seen being carried away on a stretcher by medics while holding the Palestinian flag and making the sign of peace. [19] [20]
Hassona, who is also from the Gaza Strip, [21] [22] received numerous awards for the photo, including the Pictures of the Year International award, [23] Sony World Photography Award, [24] Malta International Photo Award, [25] and All About Photo Photographer of the Year. [26] He was also a finalist in the LensCulture Visual Storytelling Awards 2019. [27] [28]
The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. Inhabited by mostly Palestinian refugees and their descendants, Gaza is one of the most densely populated territories in the world. An end of 2024 estimate puts the population of the Strip at 2.1 million. Gaza is bordered by Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the east and north. The territory has been under Israeli occupation since 1967.
This page is a partial listing of incidents of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2000.
Liberty Leading the People is a painting of the Romantic era by the French artist Eugène Delacroix, commemorating the July Revolution of 1830 that toppled King Charles X. A bare-breasted “woman of the people” with a Phrygian cap personifying the concept and Goddess of Liberty, accompanied by a young boy brandishing a pistol in each hand, leads a group of various people forward over a barricade and the bodies of the fallen while holding aloft the flag of the French Revolution — the tricolour, which again became France's national flag after these events — in one hand, and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other. The figure of Liberty is also viewed as a symbol of France and the French Republic known as Marianne. The painting is sometimes wrongly thought to depict the French Revolution of 1789.
The Popular Resistance Committees is a coalition of a number of armed Palestinian groups opposed to what they regard as the conciliatory approach of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah towards Israel.
Palestinian political violence refers to acts of violence or terrorism committed by Palestinians with the intent to accomplish political goals, and often carried out in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Common objectives of political violence by Palestinian groups include self-determination in and sovereignty over all of the region of Palestine, or the recognition of a Palestinian state inside the 1967 borders. This includes the objective of ending the Israeli occupation. More limited goals include the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and recognition of the Palestinian right of return.
The Brigades of the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa are the armed wing of the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the Palestinian territories. It was named after Mustafa Ali Zabri, better known by his kunya Abu Ali Mustafa.
The Gaza–Israel conflict is a localized part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict beginning in 1948, when about 200,000 of the more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes settled in the Gaza Strip as refugees. Since then, Israel has been involved in about 15 wars involving organizations in the Gaza Strip. The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza war (47,000+) is higher than the death toll of all other wars in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict combined.
The restrictions on movement and goods in Gaza imposed by Israel date to the early 1990s. After Hamas took over in 2007, Israel significantly intensified existing movement restrictions and imposed a complete blockade on the movement of goods and people in and out of the Gaza Strip. In the same year, Egypt closed the Rafah crossing point. The blockade's current stated aim is to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza; previously stated motivations have included exerting economic pressure on Hamas. Human rights groups have called the blockade illegal and a form of collective punishment, as it restricts the flow of essential goods, contributes to economic hardship, and limits Gazans' freedom of movement. The blockade and its effects have led to the territory being called an "open-air prison".
The Hamas–UNRWA Holocaust dispute erupted on 31 August 2009 following a perception in the Gaza Strip that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) planned to include a course on human rights that speaks about the Holocaust in the eighth-grade curriculum of preparatory schools it runs in the territory. The Radical Palestinian nationalist organization and Islamist movement Hamas, which fully controls all aspects of life in the Gaza Strip, protested, calling the Holocaust "a lie made up by the Zionists" and demanding the removal of the offending content from the curriculum. Some officials of the United Nations agency initially responded by denying that it teaches the subject of the Holocaust in its schools or that it plans to teach it in its new curriculum. This denial drew criticism from various groups and individuals.
In November 2012, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched Operation Pillar of Defense, which was an eight-day campaign in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip, beginning on 14 November 2012 with the killing of Ahmed Jabari, chief of the Gaza military wing of Hamas, by an Israeli airstrike.
Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip in Palestine since its takeover of the region from rival party Fatah in June 2007. Hamas' government was led by Ismail Haniyeh from 2007 until February 2017, when Haniyeh was replaced as leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip by Yahya Sinwar. Until October 2024, Yahya Sinwar was the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In January 2024, due to the ongoing Israel–Hamas war, Israel said that Hamas lost control of most of the northern part of the Gaza Strip. In May 2024, Hamas regrouped in the north.
Nayef Hawatmeh is a Jordanian politician who is the head of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades are a Fatah-aligned coalition of Palestinian armed groups in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The following is a timeline of events during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2018.
Events in the year 2018 in Palestine.
The 2018–2019 Gaza border protests, also known as the Great March of Return, were a series of demonstrations held each Friday in the Gaza Strip near the Gaza-Israel border from 30 March 2018 until 27 December 2019, in which Israeli forces killed a total of 223 Palestinians. The demonstrators demanded that the Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to lands they were displaced from in what is now Israel. They protested against Israel's land, air and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip and the United States recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel.
Gaza-Israel clashes began on 11 November 2018, when a botched Israeli covert operation carried out in the Khan Yunis area of the southern Gaza Strip killed seven Palestinian militants and one Israeli soldier. Exchanges of fire lasted for two more days, until a cease fire was achieved with Egyptian mediation. Some minor incidents and protests followed some two weeks after the cease fire, with decreasing intensity.
The Palestinian Joint Operations Room, also known by its full name Joint Room for Palestinian Resistance Factions, is a united front for the military wings of the Palestinian armed factions. It includes armed groups from various backgrounds, and ideologies from both the right and the left, including Islamists, socialists, nationalists, and others.
Mujahideen Brigades are the armed wing of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement. The brigades operate in the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria or The West Bank,, an area known for violence and terrorism against Jews and Israelis in Israel.
Maged Awni Muhammad Abu Ramadan is a Palestinian ophthalmologist who has served as the Minister of Health of the State of Palestine since March 2024. He was the mayor of Gaza City between 2005 and 2008.
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