Israeli forces shot and wounded at least 40 Palestinian protesters on Friday, Palestinian medics said, as thousands converged on Gaza’s border with Israel to launch a second week of demonstrations.
Twenty Palestinians have died since the demonstrations near the heavily guarded Gaza border fence began on March 30, the latest a man who died in a Gaza hospital on Friday of gunshot wounds suffered on the first day of protests, Reuters reported.
Five of Friday’s 40 wounded were in critical condition, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Palestinian tent encampments have sprung up a few hundred meters back from the 65-km frontier but groups of youths have ventured much closer.
Palestinians have staged protests along the Gaza Strip’s eastern borders for the second Friday in a row, despite Israel’s warning that it will not change its open-fire policy.
The first protests on March 30, dubbed the Great March of Return, saw tens of thousands of Palestinians demonstrating near the border for their right of return as enshrined in UN Resolution 194.
Israeli forces responded with live ammunition and rubber-coated bullets against the protesters, resulting in the killing of 17 Palestinians and the wounding of more than 1,600, in the bloodiest day since the 2014 Israeli offensive on the besieged coastal enclave.
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