Israeli troops martyr seven Palestinians as Gaza border protests resume

GAZA BORDER (Reuters) - Israeli troops martyred seven Palestinian protesters and wounded at least 900 along the Israel-Gaza border on Friday, Gaza medical officials said, raising the death toll to 24 in the week-long disturbances. They said the demonstrators, including a 16-year-old boy, were killed at protest sites along the frontier during a round of daily demonstrations that began on March 30 and have been dubbed “The Great March of Return”. Gazans, including Palestinian refugees and their descendants seeking to regain ancestral homes in what is now Israel, have set up tent encampments a few hundred metres (yards) inside the 65-km (40-mile) fence that separates Israel from the Gaza Strip. Large groups of youths have ventured much closer to the no-go zone along the barrier, risking live fire from Israeli troops to roll burning tyres and throw stones. “Israel took everything from us, the homeland, freedom, our future,” said Samer, a 27-year-old protester who would not give his full name, fearing Israeli reprisals. “I have two kids, a boy and a girl, and if I die, God will take care of them.” The number of protesters on Friday was larger than in recent days, but lower than the outset of the disturbances on March 30, when 17 Palestinians were martyred by Israeli forces. The Israeli military estimated Friday’s turnout at around 20,000. Refugees comprise most of the 2 million population of Israeli-blockaded Gaza, an enclave ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas which calls for Israel’s destruction and is designated by Western states as a terrorist organization. Hamas’s Gaza leader, Yehya Al-Sinwar, spoke at a protest encampment to praise those who turned out to confront the “enemy who besieges us”. He said the demonstrations would continue, telling the crowds: “We will uproot the borders, we will pluck out their hearts, and we will pray in Jerusalem.” Earlier in the day, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem urged protesters to keep the rallies peaceful. “Maintaining the peaceful nature of the protests will strike all fragile Zionist propaganda,” Qassem said in a statement. Palestinian youths burned Israeli flags and planted Palestinian banners on dirt mounds beside tented encampments as others arrived on large trucks carrying piles of more tyres to burn. Others launched stones with slingshots. With Israeli tear gas rising into the air, Palestinian youths used T-shirts, cheap medical masks and perfume to try and protect themselves. Israel tried to douse the burning rubber with jets of water directed over defensive dirt mounds on its side of the border. A UN human rights spokeswoman urged Israel to exercise restraint against the Palestinian protesters. “We are saying that Israel has obligations to ensure that excessive force is not employed. And that if there is unjustified and unlawful recourse to firearms, resulting in death, that may amount to a wilful killing,” Elizabeth Throssell said in Geneva.