4 Palestinians killed in latest violence at Gaza border
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli soldiers firing Friday from across a border fence killed four Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy, and wounded more than 150 others, health officials said, as several thousand people in blockaded Gaza staged a fourth round of weekly protests on the border with Israel.
Huge black plumes of smoke from burning tires engulfed the border area. Some of the activists threw stones toward the fence or flew kites with flaming rags dangling from their tails.
The latest deaths brought to 32 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli troops in protests since late March. More than 1,600 have been wounded by live rounds in the past three weeks, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The rising Palestinian casualty toll signaled that Israel’s military is sticking to its open-fire rules despite international criticism of the use of lethal force against unarmed protesters. Israel says it’s defending its border and alleges Gaza’s ruling Hamas uses protests as cover for attacks.
Israeli soldiers are positioned on the other side of the border fence, including snipers taking cover behind earthen berms, and none has been hurt.
The Palestinians say they will be asking the U.N. Human Rights Council to establish a commission to carry out an independent investigation of the Israeli military’s killing and wounding of Palestinians during the protests.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, said his counterpart in Geneva will start the process early next week. He told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York on Friday that the Palestinians will not accept an investigation that Israel has announced because “it cannot be credible.”
Turnout for the marches has fluctuated, with the biggest showing on March 30, but Friday’s crowd appeared to have been somewhat larger than the one the previous week.
The marches are part of what organizers, led by Hamas, have billed as an escalating showdown with Israel, to culminate in a mass march on May 15.
The top Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said Friday that people should get ready for large crowds spilling across the border that day. “Our people will outnumber the occupation and force it from our land,” he said, referring to Israel.
Hamas says the protests are aimed at breaking a crippling border blockade that was imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Islamic militant group overran Gaza in 2007.
The marches also press for a “right of return” of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to what is now Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from homes in the 1948 war over Israel’s creation.