Gazan said to die of gunshot wound from border clashes
Hamas-run health ministry says 29-year-old Palestinian man was shot in stomach during Friday protests
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A Palestinian man shot by Israeli forces two days ago during clashes on the Gaza border died of his wounds early Sunday, the Hamas-run health ministry in the Strip said.
“Osama Khalil Abu Khater, 29 years old, died of wounds to his stomach after being shot by the Israeli enemy east of Khan Younis the day before yesterday,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
On Friday, a few thousand Palestinians took part in clashes along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel for a thirteenth consecutive week, with the Gaza health ministry reporting 2,016 injured.
The army said two grenades were thrown during the clashes toward Israeli troops at the border fence near Kibbutz Nahal Oz.
No soldiers were injured.
Some 132 Palestinians have been killed in clashes since the violent “March of Return” protests broke out along the Gaza border on March 30, according to the ministry’s figures. Dozens of the fatalities were members of terror groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have acknowledged.
Israel says its troops are defending the border and has accused Hamas of trying to carry out terror attacks under the cover of the protests. The border protests peaked on May 14, when some 40,000 Gazans protested along the fence and violent clashes took place between troops and Palestinians. The protest came on the same day that the US opened its embassy in Jerusalem. Some 60 Gazans died in the May 14 violence; Hamas acknowledged that 50 of them were its members.
Palestinian protesters have hurled grenades, improvised explosives and rocks at soldiers, burned tires and flown hundreds of incendiary kites and balloons into Israeli territory, sparking hundreds of fires.
In recent days, the military has attempted to force Hamas to rein in the aerial arsonists by carrying out airstrikes on the organization’s positions in response to kite and balloon attacks.
Around midnight on Tuesday, Israeli jets bombed three Hamas positions in the Strip in response to numerous airborne arson attacks by Gazans earlier in the day.
Minutes later, Palestinians in the Strip launched the first of many rocket and mortar barrages at southern Israel, triggering sirens throughout the area and sending thousands into bomb shelters. Over the course of the next four hours, some 45 rockets and mortar shells were fired at southern Israel, with at least six exploding inside communities, causing damage but no injuries, including one that landed just outside a kindergarten.
In response, the Israeli military carried out two more rounds of airstrikes in Gaza, hitting a total of approximately 25 targets on a number of Hamas compounds.
The Times of Israel Community.