Israeli troops have killed four Palestinians and wounded hundreds of others with live fire or tear gas used against protesters at the Gaza border, medics say, while Israel said militants had attacked its forces with guns and grenades.
Organisers linked the protests to annual “Jerusalem Day” events in Iran, which like Gaza’s dominant Hamas Islamists preaches Israel’s destruction and was incensed by the US recognition in December of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
He said the Gaza demonstrations, launched on March 30, would continue until Palestinians achieve their demand for a right of return to ancestral lands lost to Israel in the 1948 war of its creation.
Israel, with US support, has described the protests as a ploy by Hamas to breach its border, and says that its lethal tactics have been necessary to prevent that. At least 124 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army fire, medics say.
On Friday the army said in a statement it had repelled around 10,000 Palestinians who converged on five points of the border. Some of them threw rocks and burned tyres.
At one location, at least two Palestinians fired guns at an army post, while others threw grenades or used helium balloons and kites to fly explosives over the border, the army said.