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11-year-old boy killed by Israeli gunfire in Gaza

SHAFAQNAThree Palestinian including an 11-year-old boy has died of his wounds by Israeli troops during weekly protest on the fence at the fortified Gaza Strip border.

The Israeli military said 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, the military said.
Friday’s dead brought to 177 the number of Palestinians killed since the sometimes violent demonstrations were launched on March 30 to press demands against Israel. The 11-year-old, Shadi Abdel-Al, is the youngest fatality from Israeli gunfire.

“He used to go every Friday to the marches like thousands of other people. This Friday was his destiny to die as a martyr,” the boy’s father, Abdel-Aziz Abdel-Al, told Reuters.

Hundreds of family members and friends attended the funeral, with some calling for revenge.
“God burn those that burned my heart and killed my son,” said his mother Umm Shadi, who has eight other children.
“What is my son guilty of? He is 12 years old,” she added through tears.

Mohammed, a 12 year-old friend also from Jabalia refugee camp, said he was with Abdel Aal when he was hit.
“We were throwing stones at the fence,” he told AFP, referring to the heavily-guarded Israeli border line.
The friend said Shadi had been hit by a tear gas grenade fired by Israeli soldiers and collapsed instantly, Arab News reported.

Another Palestinian, 28-year-old Hashem Hassan, said he saw Abdel-Al being shot 70 meters (yards) from the fence: “He threw a few stones, which flew just a few yards. He posed no threat.”

Asked about Abdel-Al’s death, a military spokeswoman said only that troops had kept to their open-fire regulations.
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.

Israel’s tactics against the protests have drawn international condemnation.

But Washington has backed its ally in accusing Hamas of staging the mass-mobilization to distract from Gaza’s poverty and governance problems and to provide cover for armed Palestinian border incursions. Hamas has denied this.

The Israeli military claimed that, twice this week, its patrols discovered and dismantled bombs that had been planted for use against them at the fence. Early on Friday, several Palestinians crawled to the fence to throw a pipebomb at troops, who fired back, the military claimed. 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 neighboring Egypt, has placed on Gaza.

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, Reuters reported.

For more than five months, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have protested along the fence with Israel demanding their right to return to the homes and land their families were expelled from 70 years ago.

The Great March of Return rallies culminated on May 15 to mark what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or Catastrophe – a reference to the forced removal of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and villages to clear the way for Israel’s establishment in 1948, Aljazeera reported.

 

Read more from shafaqna:

Israel attacks Gaza as Hospitals faces lack of fuel

UN warned on The well-being of two million people in Gaza

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