A Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire in fresh clashes on the Gaza border yesterday, the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said.
Mohamed Abu Abada, 27, was shot in the chest in protests along the border near Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, a health ministry spokesman said.
An Israeli military spokesman said some 3,000 Palestinian “demonstrators” were gathered along the coast and border fence in the northern Gaza Strip.
According to the spokesman, they were burning tyres as well as hurling rocks and explosive devices toward soldiers and at the fence between Israel and the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
“Troops are responding with riot dispersal means and firing in accordance with standard operating procedures,” he said.
Dozens of Palestinian vessels had also left from Gaza toward Israel by sea “instigating a naval riot”, according to the spokesman. At least 218 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since months of protests began in late March.
The majority were shot during often violent protests along the border, though others were killed by aircraft or tank fire.
On Sunday, three teenagers were killed by an Israeli air strike after approaching the border fence. Israel alleged they were attempting to damage the fence and “were apparently involved in placing an improvised explosive device adjacent to it”.
The protests are calling for Palestinians to be allowed to return to the lands they fled during the war surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948 and which are now inside the Jewish state.
Israel says its actions are necessary to defend the border and stop infiltrations and attacks, which it accuses Hamas of seeking to orchestrate. Israel and Palestinian fighters in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008.
EXCESSIVE FORCE
Meanwhile, Palestinians yesterday accused Israel of excessive force after an air strike on the Gaza border killed three teenagers accused of trying to damage the fence and of possibly placing a bomb there.
A Palestinian rights group said the three were trying to sneak through the fence and called what it said was a drone strike an “excessive use of force”.
The three who the Gazan health ministry said were aged 13 and 14 were killed late Sunday near the tense border between the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and Israel. The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said its investigations concluded the three approached the area Sunday evening “in an attempt to sneak through the border fence”.
It said paramedics who retrieved the bodies on the Gazan side of the fence “confirmed that the children did not have anything (weapons)”.
It gave their ages as 14 and 15. An Israeli army spokesman said he had nothing further to add to the previous statement.
The incident occurred after months of protests and clashes along the Gaza border. Several military flare-ups have also occurred in that time. The boys were identified by the health ministry as Khaled Abu Said, 14, Mohamed Abu Zaher and Mohamed al-Satari, both 13.
They came from the village of Wadi al-Salqa around a kilometre from the border fence.
Hundreds attended the funeral yesterday. Waleed Muharib, 20, a neighbour, said he saw them as they left.
“They were laughing as they headed to the border. I told them to be careful. They said they were going to catch birds.”
Later, he said, “I heard the explosion and I knew they were dead”. Ibrahim al-Satari, the father of 13-year-old Mohamed, said he couldn’t understand it. “I do not know why they killed my only son and his friends. These are small children,” he said.
“They could have caught them and found out they were playing or hunting.” In their school classrooms, teachers marked the boys’ seats with notes with their names.
UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov expressed sympathy for the families. “Such tragedies must be avoided at all costs,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Children must be protected, not exposed to violence or put in danger.”
Palestinian protesters protect their faces from teargas fired by Israeli troops during a demonstration on the beach near the maritime border, in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, yesterday.
