Dozens of Palestinians shot by Israel in protests at Gaza and West Bank
Israeli security forces wounded dozens of Palestinians taking part in protests in the occupied West Bank and along the Gaza Strip border on Friday.
At the West Bank village of Ras Karkar, hundreds of Palestinians demonstrating against Israeli land seizures for Jewish settlements threw stones at troops, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, injuring at least a dozen people.
Friday’s marches were the latest in months of weekly protests that began in May to mark the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, or Palestinian catastrophe. At least 170 Palestinians have been killed so far.
In Hamas-controlled Gaza, thousands of Palestinians gathered near the border fence as part of weekly protests launched on March 30 to demand rights to land lost in the 1948 war of Israel’s foundation.
Gaza medics said about 180 Palestinians were wounded, a third of them from gunshots, including a female nurse and a boy.
The Israeli army said troops fired to disperse Palestinians who had been rolling burning tyres at the fence, posing a threat of a breach, and in one case threw a grenade over the fence.
The killing of Palestinian protesters has drawn stinging criticism of Israel from several world powers except the US, which has echoed its Middle East ally in blaming Hamas for the bloodshed.
Israel withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but has built up settlements in the West Bank, angering many Palestinians who see an obstacle to their hopes for statehood hopes.
The last round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks broke down in 2014.
An Israeli court broke new judicial ground on Tuesday by giving legal recognition to a settlement built without Israeli government authorisation on privately owned Palestinian land.
Most countries consider all of the settlements built on territories that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war to be illegal.
Israel disputes this. About 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas that are also home to more than 2.6 million Palestinians.