Scores of Gazans injured by Israeli fire
gaza city — Israeli troops shot dead three Palestinians and wounded at least 618 others on Friday with live fire or tear gas used against thousands of protesters at the Gaza Strip border, medics said. Some demonstrators burnt tyres, threw stones and flew blazing kites.
The demonstrations were the latest in a series of protests to call attention to a decade-old blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt.
The march also marked the annual “Al Quds (Jerusalem) Day”.
In Gaza, at least 118 Palestinians had been killed and over 4,000 wounded by Israeli army fire in the protests near the border fence since March. The overwhelming majority of the dead and wounded had been unarmed, according to Gaza health officials.
After Friday prayers, thousands of Gaza residents streamed toward five protest tent camps that had been erected more than two months ago, each several hundred metres from the fence. From there, smaller groups walked closer to it.
In a camp east of Gaza City, activists burned tyres, releasing black smoke. Others threw stones or flew kites with burning rags attached.
Israeli troops fired volleys of tear gas, including from drones, that sent protesters running for cover.
One man with a bullhorn shouted, “America is the biggest evil”.
At one point, seven activists in black-and-white striped shirts meant to resemble concentration camp uniforms from World War II approached the fence.
“We want to remind the world that the Israeli occupation is committing the same massacres that the Nazis committed,” said activist Ahmed Abu Artima. The attempt to draw a parallel between Gaza’s suffering and the Holocaust was bound to draw angry reactions.
The mass protests have been aimed at a border blockade imposed by Israel in 2007. The marchers have also pressed demands for a “right of return” for descendants of Palestinian refugees to ancestral homes in what is now Israel.
Protester Fadi Saleh said the frequent marches have helped revive sympathies in the Arab world for the Palestinians, but that more could be done.
“We need real Arab support and solidarity with our cause,” said Saleh, a student of Arabic literature who wore a medical mask against the tear gas.