Up to 50,000 people were expected to march on the Gaza/Israel border. They sent out the call, bused in the kids to stand in the front lines as human shields (say, wasn't there a gas shortage?) and still and all, it only amounted to about 4-5000 people and the usual gang of kids throwing rocks at a checkpoint.

Nevertheless, the Pallywood propaganda machine was in full gear, and with more press per square meter than anywhere on earth, the bang for the buck for the staged event bore a good ratio. The press says the event, which causes a great deal of concern on the other side of the border, "ended peacefully". It was a bust, but they have to justify all the hype, rather than admit that they were played...as usual. It also looks as though Arab society in Gaza hasn't quite succeeded in making the entire population into a bunch of drooling suicide-seekers. The IDF was geared up. Hamas voters were willing to wait a bit for martyrdom.

The BBC story (where else?) does its propaganda duty on behalf of Hamas admirably: Gaza protesters form human chain

There's some cognitive dissonance in this heading and the paragraph that follows:

It's not until paragraph 10, after the BBC has finished telling the story it wanted to tell, that we find out what 50,000 and "thousands" actually meant: