A/HRC/40/74 also members (the armed wings of these parties were not represented on the committee). While the members of the committee held diverse political views, they stated that their unifying element was the principle that the march was to be “fully peaceful from beginning to the end” and demonstrators would be unarmed. 25. The higher national committee established demonstration sites in open land along the separation fence in all five Gaza governorates: northern Gaza Strip (Abu Safia); east of Gaza City (Malaka); central Gaza Strip (El Bureij); east of Khan Younis (Khuzaa); and in the south in Rafah (Al-Shawkah). Each site comprised a “camp of return” – a group of tents positioned 700–1,000 m from the separation fence, named after villages from which Palestinians were displaced in 1948. 26. Demonstrations were held at these sites every Friday and occasionally other weekdays between 30 March and 31 December 2018, and continued thereafter. Beginning in August, weekly demonstrations were also organized at the Zikim beach in North Gaza. D. Conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups 27. Over the past 10 years, Gaza and Israel have experienced successive violent confrontations; these included three major escalations with massive land and air attacks by Israeli security forces on Gaza and indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel by Palestinian organized armed groups. Nearly 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the three weeks of hostilities in 2008 and 2009, during Operation Cast Lead; 174 Palestinians and 6 Israelis were killed during one week of hostilities in 2012; and 2,251 Palestinians and 71 Israelis were killed during 51 days of hostilities in mid-2014, during Operation Protective Edge. 28. A ceasefire mediated by Egypt between Israel and Hamas was concluded in August 2014. Episodes of hostilities have since continued, and included Israeli airstrikes and incursions into Gaza, and indiscriminate rocket or mortar fire by Palestinian armed groups towards Israel. As these events occurred outside the time and place of the demonstration, the commission did not investigate them. E. Israeli preparations and rules of engagement 29. Israeli security forces stated that they perceived a new security threat in the demonstrations as being closely linked with Palestinian armed groups and an attempt to mask “terror activities”. This assessment was based partly on statements by Palestinian public figures, including leaders of Hamas, speaking of return and of crossing the fence, including in ambiguous or inflammatory terms. 30. Prior to the first demonstration, Israeli forces reinforced their positions at the fence with additional troops, including more than 100 sharpshooters. They dropped leaflets in Gaza and contacted Palestinian bus companies to warn against participation. At the demonstration sites, they strengthened the separation fence and its underground barrier (to prevent and detect cross-border tunnels), installed kilometres of barbed wire coils on the Gazan side as additional barriers, cleared vegetation on both sides, dug deep trenches on the Israeli side and erected a battery of earth mounds or berms onto which snipers were positioned for better visibility and shooting accuracy. 31. The rules of engagement apparently permitted live fire at demonstrators as a last resort in the event of imminent threat to life or limb of Israeli soldiers or civilians. They permitted snipers to shoot at the legs of “main inciters” as a means to prevent a demonstrating crowd from crossing the separation fence, because the Israeli forces viewed crossing as a potential imminent threat, in part because the crowd might include militants. The rules also permitted the use of lethal force against any demonstrators “directly participating in hostilities”, such as an armed attack against Israeli forces. 5