Israeli soldiers today killed three protesters at the border including an 11-year-old boy, Palestinian medical officials say.
The army is said to have wounded at least 248 others taking part on Friday in weekly protests at the fortified Gaza Strip boundary.
The Israeli military says it used force necessary to repel 13,000 Palestinians who massed at several points at the fence.
Palestinian medical officials claim that Israelis shot dead an 11-year-old boy at the Gaza border today as clashes continue
Protesters carry a Palestinian shot and wounded by Israeli troops on the 25th Friday of ‘Great March of Return’ demonstration
The Israeli military says it used force necessary to repel 13,000 Palestinians who massed at several points at the fence
Some hurled rocks, fire-bombs and grenades at troops under cover of smoke from burning tyres, injuring a soldier, and nine Palestinians briefly crossed into Israel, it added.
The 11-year-old, Shadi Abdel-Al, is the youngest reported fatality of Israeli gunfire as clashes continue amid protests Israel says have been staged by Islamist rulers Hamas, which denies the charge.
Shadi’s father Abdel-Aziz Abdel-Al today told Reuters that his son had died as a martyr.
‘He used to go every Friday to the marches like thousands of other people,’ he said. ‘This Friday was his destiny to die as a martyr.’
Another Palestinian, 28-year-old Hashem Hassan, said he saw Abdel-Al being shot 70 metres from the fence, adding: ‘He threw a few stones, which flew just a few yards. He posed no threat.’
Asked about Abdel-Al’s death, an Israeli military spokeswoman said only that troops had kept to their open-fire regulations.
A Palestinian protester uses a slingshot to throw stone toward Israeli forces firing tear gas during a demonstration along the Israeli fence east of Gaza City
Today’s dead brings the number of Palestinians killed to 177 since the sometimes violent demonstrations were launched on March 30 to press demands against Israel.
Since March 30, Gaza has also seen shelling exchanges between the coastal enclave’s Islamist Hamas rulers and Israel.
An Israeli soldier was killed by a Palestinian sniper and Israel has lost tracts of forest and farmland to cross-border incendiary attacks.
The US has backed its ally Israel in accusing Hamas of staging the mass-mobilisation to distract from Gaza’s poverty and governance problems and provide cover for armed Palestinian border incursions. Hamas denies this.
The Israeli military said that, twice this week, its patrols discovered and dismantled bombs that had been planted for use against them at the fence.
Earlier today, several Palestinians crawled to the fence to throw a pipebomb at troops, who fired back, the military said. There was no word of casualties.
The protesters want rights to lands Palestinians lost during the 1948 war of Israel’s foundation, as well as the easing of a crippling blockade that Israel, with the help of neighbouring Egypt, has placed on Gaza to isolate Hamas and deny it weaponry.
U.N. and Egyptian mediators have been trying to reach a deal to calm Gaza, where Israel and Hamas have fought three wars in the last decade.
The brokering efforts have been complicated by Hamas’s feuding with Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has restricted funding to Gaza.