By Safiye Karaback
GAZA CITY (AA): The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli gunfire since the beginning of protests on March 30 has climbed to 135, according to Palestine’s Health Ministry.
Ashraf al-Qidra, a ministry spokesman, told Anadolu Agency that more than 15,000 people have been injured during the protests in Gaza.
Around 370 injured people are in critical condition, Al-Qidra said.
“2,536 of those injured are children and 1,160 are women,” he said, adding that 231 medical staff and 175 journalists were among injured.
Dr. Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesperson of the Health Ministry in Gaza, said that Israeli soldiers killed, Friday, two Palestinians, including a child, and injured 415 others, including 11 children, two women and three medics, in the “Great Return March” processions along the eastern parts of the Gaza Strip.
Dr. al-Qedra said the soldiers killed Mohammad Fawzi Mohammad al-Hamayda, 24, after shooting him with live rounds in the abdomen and his leg, east of Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
He added that the soldiers killed a child, identified as Yasser Amjad Abu Naja, 14, east of Khan Younis, also in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinians had begun staging mass rallies along the Gaza-Israel security fence on March 30. They demand the “right of return” to their homes and villages in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.
The protesters also demand an end to Israel’s decade-long blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its 2 million inhabitants of many basic commodities .
[Archive Photo: 8 month old Palestinian baby dies of tear gas inhalation in Gaza. Father carries Leila Anwar Ghandoour. 15 May 2018. Photographer: Mustafa Hassona/AA]
