AFP, Gaza City :
Israeli fire killed seven Palestinians and wounded scores during clashes on Friday near Gaza’s border, the first unrest-related deaths there after days of violence in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, medics said.
The clashes came as Hamas’s chief in Gaza called violence that has hit the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem an intifada, or uprising, and urged further unrest.
The Gaza Strip had been mainly calm as unrest has shaken annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank in recent days.
But clashes broke out on Friday east of Gaza City and Khan Yunis along the border with the Jewish state, with Israeli forces opening fire and killing six Palestinians and wounding 21, according to medics.
Ahmed al-Hirbawi, Shadi Dawla, Abed al-Wahidi and Nabil Sharaf, all aged 20, were killed when soldiers responded after youths threw stones at them on the Israel side of their common border east of Khan Yunis, Gaza medics said.
Mohammed al-Raqab, 15, and Adnan Abu Alian, 20, were killed in similar clashes east of Gaza City.
Medics said another 80 Palestinians were wounded, 10 of them seriously.
An army spokeswoman said about 200 Palestinians had approached the fence while hurling rocks and rolling burning tyres toward security forces.
“Forces on the site responded with fire toward the main instigators to prevent their progress and disperse the riot,” claimed the army spokeswoman.
The spokeswoman confirmed “five hits” without elaborating.
The clashes came as Hamas’s chief in Gaza called the spreading violence an intifada, or uprising, and urged further unrest.
In a sermon at a mosque in Gaza City, Ismail Haniyeh said “we are calling for the strengthening and increasing of the intifada. It is the only path that will lead to liberation,” he said.
“Gaza will fulfil its role in the Jerusalem intifada and it is more than ready for confrontation.”
Stabbing attacks in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Israel itself along with rioting have raised fears of a third Palestinian intifada, following a first that began in 1987 and a second in 2000.
Hamas rules Gaza, squeezed between Egypt and Israel and separated from the West Bank. It remains deeply divided from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party.
The enclave has been hit by three wars with Israel since 2008. A 50-day conflict between Palestinian militants in Gaza and Israel during the summer of 2014 left more than 2,200 people dead and 100,000 homeless.
Israeli fire killed seven Palestinians and wounded scores during clashes on Friday near Gaza’s border, the first unrest-related deaths there after days of violence in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, medics said.
The clashes came as Hamas’s chief in Gaza called violence that has hit the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem an intifada, or uprising, and urged further unrest.
The Gaza Strip had been mainly calm as unrest has shaken annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank in recent days.
But clashes broke out on Friday east of Gaza City and Khan Yunis along the border with the Jewish state, with Israeli forces opening fire and killing six Palestinians and wounding 21, according to medics.
Ahmed al-Hirbawi, Shadi Dawla, Abed al-Wahidi and Nabil Sharaf, all aged 20, were killed when soldiers responded after youths threw stones at them on the Israel side of their common border east of Khan Yunis, Gaza medics said.
Mohammed al-Raqab, 15, and Adnan Abu Alian, 20, were killed in similar clashes east of Gaza City.
Medics said another 80 Palestinians were wounded, 10 of them seriously.
An army spokeswoman said about 200 Palestinians had approached the fence while hurling rocks and rolling burning tyres toward security forces.
“Forces on the site responded with fire toward the main instigators to prevent their progress and disperse the riot,” claimed the army spokeswoman.
The spokeswoman confirmed “five hits” without elaborating.
The clashes came as Hamas’s chief in Gaza called the spreading violence an intifada, or uprising, and urged further unrest.
In a sermon at a mosque in Gaza City, Ismail Haniyeh said “we are calling for the strengthening and increasing of the intifada. It is the only path that will lead to liberation,” he said.
“Gaza will fulfil its role in the Jerusalem intifada and it is more than ready for confrontation.”
Stabbing attacks in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Israel itself along with rioting have raised fears of a third Palestinian intifada, following a first that began in 1987 and a second in 2000.
Hamas rules Gaza, squeezed between Egypt and Israel and separated from the West Bank. It remains deeply divided from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party.
The enclave has been hit by three wars with Israel since 2008. A 50-day conflict between Palestinian militants in Gaza and Israel during the summer of 2014 left more than 2,200 people dead and 100,000 homeless.
