Demonstrations continue ‘as goal not achieved yet’

HAMAS plans to continue protests along the Gaza border and hopes that a mass demonstration on June 5 will rival the size of this week’s protests, a spokesman said yesterday.

Two days after Israeli forces killed more than 60 Palestinians and wounded around 2,000, the Islamist group which controls the Gaza Strip said the demonstrations would keep going ahead of the June anniversary of the 1967 war.

“The protests will continue because they have not achieved their goals yet,” said Hazem Qasem, a Hamas spokesman. “Our desire here is for June 5 to be as big as May 14.”

A senior Hamas leader said on television that 50 of the 62 killed on Monday were members of Hamas.

As Israel and Hamas continued their war of words, Hamas refused to accept a medical shipment from the Israeli military, despite a severe shortage of hospital supplies with which to treat the wounded. Mr Qasem dismissed it as a propaganda stunt.

“The occupation is trying to show that it has a human face, which is wrong. These trucks carrying these medical supplies are covered with Palestinian blood,” he said.

Israel said the Hamas refusal was proof that it did not care about the residents of Gaza.

Several other aid shipments from the UN and the Palestinian Authority were allowed in.