Atalla Fayoumi hobbles on crutches across the sunbaked plain near Israel's perimeter fence in the Gaza Strip, gazing toward plumes of smoke that have begun rising from a clutch of burning tires in the distance.
The 18-year-old Palestinian's right leg was amputated after Israeli soldiers shot him here in April at one of the mass demonstrations against Israel's long blockade of Gaza that are held every week. Yet he has kept returning to the protests — just like thousands of other desperate, unemployed men who feel they have nothing left to lose.
Eight months after the demonstrations began, there appears to be no end to what has become a predictable routine that yields dozens of new casualties each week. Over the next few hours, Fayoumi knows the crowds will swell into the thousands. They'll burn many tires, the sky will turn black. They'll attack the fence with stones and firebombs, Israeli gunfire will ring out, and Palestinian ambulance sirens will wail nonstop.
By the time it is over, at least 80 Palestinians will be wounded and three will be dead.
At sunset, Fayoumi and the others will abruptly turn around and walk home, while the Israelis will emerge from their positions and march the other way.
In a week, like clockwork, they will be back, poised for the deadly ritual to start all over again.
The Gaza Strip has been the front line of confrontations between Palestinians and Israel for generations. But the territory has been brought to its knees over the last decade by three punishing wars with Israel and an air, sea and land blockade.
The 11-year blockade, imposed by Israel and Egypt, is aimed at weakening Hamas, the militant group that seized power in Gaza from the internationally backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. But its impact is felt by all. Raw sewage flows directly onto once-scenic Mediterranean beaches, tap water is undrinkable, and electricity is available just a few hours a day. Over half the Gaza Strip's 2 million people are unemployed, and most residents cannot leave what essentially has become a mass prison, even for medical reasons.
The blockade and growing anger over the harsh living conditions have put enormous pressure on Hamas, which is trying to redirect it toward Israel with relentless protests, said Mkhaimar Abusada, an associate professor of political science at Gaza's al-Azhar University.
"But it's a very slippery slope,'' Abusada said. "Because they're not going to stop until the siege is lifted — or there is another war.''
That almost happened this month, when an Israeli raid into Gaza left seven Palestinian militants and a senior Israeli military officer dead. The raid prompted Hamas and other armed groups to fire hundreds of rockets and mortar shells into Israel, triggering a devastating wave of Israeli airstrikes in return — the heaviest fighting here since a 2014 war.
Both parties pulled back from the brink with a truce, and Hamas kept last Friday's protests restrained — though not enough to keep 40 Palestinians from being wounded.
While most Gazans see the protests as the inevitable reaction to Israel's siege, Israel has a different view altogether.
"We don't see them as protests ... we're not seeing somebody exercising their democratic right to gather and voice their opinion,'' said Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus. "We are confronting attacks, violent attacks along our security fence from an entity, Gaza, that is controlled by a terrorist organization, Hamas.''
Since they began March 30, Israeli troops — using live ammunition against Palestinians mostly armed with rocks — have killed more than 170 people and shot nearly 6,000 others, among them scores of children. Thousands more have been wounded during the protests by tear gas or rubber-coated bullets. On the Israeli side, one soldier has been killed by a sniper and six others wounded.
Every Friday, there are more.
It is 2:30 p.m. in Malaka, one of five protest sites along the border, and several boys are practicing for a fight.
They are flinging large rocks onto a barren field with homemade slingshots. One of them, 17-year-old Ahmed al-Burdaini, shows off a bucket filled with fragments of steel rebar he says he spent the week collecting from the rubble of homes destroyed in past Israeli airstrikes.
"We want to use it against them,'' he says proudly.
Another boy points across the frontier and writes in a reporter's notebook: "This Is Our Land.'' It is a reference to another demand of the protests, that Palestinians be allowed to return to lands lost during the 1948 war that created the Jewish state — a demand Israel rejects outright.