Gaza City, August 8 (RHC)-- Israeli forces made deadly use of crowd control weapons against Palestinians attending the Great March of Return rallies including tear gas canisters which are not designed to hit people directly.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) database, as of late June 2019, more than 1,500 Gazan protesters arrived in hospital with injuries resulting from direct teargas canister hits.

Teargas canisters with a firing range of several hundred meters are designed to be non-lethal and it is forbidden to fire them directly at people.  Israeli soldiers have been firing tear gas canisters to hit protesters directly in the chest, head or face.