You have to tip your cap to Israel's enemies. They know exactly how to put the Jewish state in an impossible position while making it appear that Israel is culpable of serious human rights violations.

Case in point; hundreds of demonstrators from Syria and Lebanon, gathered on the Israeli border, staged attacks against Israeli soldiers that gave them no option but to open fire. Eight protestors are dead and Israel has another public relations nightmare on its hands.

Haaretz:

Four people were reportedly shot dead by Israel Defense Forces troops Sunday as they opened fire on large numbers of infiltrators trying to breach Syria's southern border with Israel. Another four people were said to have been killed on the Lebanese side of its shared frontier with Israel, as Palestinian protests for the annual Nakba Day. which mourns the creation of the State of Israel, took hold across the region.

In Majdal Shams, which runs along the Israel-Syria border, scores of Palestinian refugees from Syria spilled into the town. The Magen David Adom rescue service said about a dozen others had been wounded. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed opening fire on infiltrators.

About 70 people, most of them Palestinian refugees, managed to cross the border, according to local residents. Initial reports had put the number of infiltrators into the hundreds.

"The way it was reported to me, they broke through the fence," Dolan Abu Salah, the mayor of Majdal Shams, told Army Radio.

[...]

Carrying Palestinian flags and chanting "we want our land back," thousands of Palestinians tried to approach the electric fence that separates Lebanon from Israel, but Lebanese army troops fired in the air and ordered the crowd to return to where the rally was held. 

The demonstrators pelted the Lebanese troops with stones as they struggled to hold them back from the fence.

But around 50 protesters managed to reach the fence and started throwing stones at the Israeli soldiers on the other side of the fence, prompting the IDF troops to fire bullets and tear gas at the protesters.

So far, we have only one side to the story - the Palestinian side. Israeli soldiers are well trained and don't open fire on civilians unless they feel threatened in some way. It will be interesting to hear the Israeli side of the story, sure to be lost or ignored in the coverage of all those "innocent" Palestinians who only want "their" land back.