A Palestinian teen died of his wounds yesterday a day after he was shot by Israeli troops during a protest on the Gaza border, the enclave’s health ministry said.
Ahmad Abu Tayoor, 17, was shot late Friday on the border close to the southern city of Rafah, the ministry said.
The Israeli army shot dead another 17-year-old Palestinian, Bilal Khafaja, on Friday and wounded at least 45 others as thousands of demonstrators approached Gaza’s border with Israel in multiple locations.
The military said in a statement yesterday that it was opening an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the two young protesters.
The army also said that it had arrested four Palestinians yesterday.
They were “armed with a knife and an axe (and) attempted to break through the security fence from Gaza into Israel”, it said on Twitter.
On Friday, Palestinians had set tyres ablaze and thrown Molotov cocktails and grenades towards nearby Israeli soldiers, the army said.
There have been regular protests along the border since March 30 as Palestinians demand the right to return to homes their families fled or were expelled from during the war surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948.
At least 175 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since then.
Over the same period, one Israeli soldier was shot dead by a Palestinian sniper.
Israel accuses Gaza’s rulers Hamas of manipulating the protests. This week, it closed its only people crossing with Gaza after violent protests damaged the infrastructure.
A relative mourns over the death of 17-year-old Palestinian boy Bilal Khafaja, killed the day before by Israeli forces, during his funeral in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, yesterday.
