Palestinian said killed in Gaza border clashes

One Palestinian was reported killed on Friday as thousands of Palestinians took part in protests along the border with the Gaza Strip on Friday, amid threats by terror factions in the coastal enclave to ramp up violence with Israel.

Karam Fayyad, 26, was killed east of the Gaza city of Khan Yunis, Ashraf al-Qodra, the spokesman of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, told AFP. At least six others were injured.

An Israeli army spokesperson said some 4,000 Palestinians took part in the riots, throwing rocks and explosive devices at soldiers. The explosives did not reach the border fence where troops were deployed.

Israeli forces responded with riot dispersal means, including live fire, the spokesperson said.

The Ynet news site reported shortly after 5:30 p.m. that the clashes had ended.

“Our nation is determined to continue the great struggle against the enemy with all its might, no matter how many victims there are,” the site quoted Gaza’s Hamas rulers saying in a statement after the riots.

Despite threats of renewed violence by Palestinian terror groups after four people were killed in last week’s demonstrations, turnout was less than half the total of recent weeks, possibly owing to the stormy and cold winter weather.

Israeli defense officials on Thursday had warned Gaza residents against taking part in the weekly clashes.

“Residents of Gaza, what do you want your upcoming Friday to look like? Are you interested in it being spent with members of your family, or in unpleasant incidents on the security fence?” the Head of the Coordination and Liaison Administration to Gaza, Col. Eyad Sirhan, said in an appeal to Gazans via the Arabic-language Facebook page of the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit.

Earlier Friday, a suspected incendiary device landed near a kindergarten in a Gaza-area community, after a lull of several weeks for the airborne arson attempts from the coastal enclave.

Gaza protesters have launched hundreds of incendiary kites and balloons into Israel, sparking fires that have destroyed forests, burned crops, and killed livestock. Over 7,000 acres of land have been burned, causing millions of shekels in damages, according to Israeli officials. Some balloons have carried improvised explosive devices.

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had issued a warning to the rulers of the Strip, amid a spike in terror attacks in the West Bank. “I conveyed a clear message to Hamas — we won’t accept a situation of a truce in Gaza and terror in Judea and Samaria,” he told a cabinet meeting, using the biblical name for the West Bank.

Since March, Palestinians have been holding weekly protests on the border that Israel has accused Hamas of using as a cover for attacks on troops and attempts to breach the security fence. Israel has demanded an end to the violent demonstrations along the border in any ceasefire agreement.

Hamas, an Islamist terror group that seized control of Gaza in 2007 from the Fatah faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, openly seeks to destroy Israel.

AFP contributed to this report