Fifteen Palestinian protesters were reported killed and hundreds more injured in clashes with Israeli forces on the Gaza border on Friday in the bloodiest day of demonstrations in several years. Thousands of Palestinians marched towards the Israeli fence around Gaza as part of large-scale demonstrations supported by Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls the enclave. Israel’s military said that some of the demonstrators turned violent and hurled firebombs and burning tyres at Israeli troops on the other side of the fence. Soldiers fired live ammunition as well rubber bullets and lashes of tear gas dropped by drones. The violence comes at the start of a tense period which will culminate in the opening of the controversial US embassy in Jerusalem in May and the 70th anniversary of what Palestinians call “The Nakba” - the mass displacement of Arabs during the 1948 war with Israel. Friday’s demonstrations were billed as the start of the “Great March of Return”, in which Palestinian refugees will demand to be able to return to their 1948 homes in what is today Israel. Palestinians have erected camp sites of tents at five locations along the Gaza border and plan to move the tents closer and closer to the border as the May 15 Nakba anniversary nears. Palestinians marching past the tent city erected to commermoate Land Day, when six Arab Israelis were killed during 1976 demonstrations against Israeli confiscations of Arab land Credit: MAHMUD HAMS/ AFP “At the peak of the attack on the Palestinian cause - by Trump’s move on Jerusalem - the Palestinians reiterate that they are sticking to their land,” said Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader. The group said that the people killed “sacrificed their souls for the sake of the great revolution which precedes the great return”. Israel said that the marches were “a dangerous, premeditated provocation meant to fan the flames of conflict and increase tension”. “The Hamas terror organisation cynically uses women and children, sending them to the security fence and endangering their lives,” the Israeli military said. One Palestinian farmer was killed early on Friday morning by Israeli strikes in Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry. A wounded Palestinian is evacuated during clashes ahead of a march along the srael border with Gaza Credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/ REUTERS The other seven were killed in clashes with Israeli forces along the border. An Israeli official said at least two of the dead were known Hamas operatives. Turkey accused Israel of using "disproportionate force” in confronting the protesters. The demonstrations were largely ignored by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, who have been locked in a decade-long fierce rivalry with Hamas for leadership of the Palestinian movement. A Palestinian youth being carried on a stretcher after being injured during demonstrations on Friday Credit: MOHAMMED ABED/AFP Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a Twitter post directed to Gazans in both Hebrew and Arabic that "Hamas's leadership is playing with your life." "Anyone who approaches the fence today will be putting themselves in danger." US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December has infuriated Palestinians, who claim its annexed eastern sector as the capital of their future state. Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2008.
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