By Mohamed Majed
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA): At least two Palestinians were killed and 270 others injured on Friday by Israeli army gunfire near the security fence between the eastern Gaza Strip and Israel, according to a Gaza Health Ministry official.
“Karim Abu Ftair, 30, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the eastern border of the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip,” Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said in a statement.
The Palestinian was shot in his eye, and the bullet exited through the back of his head after fracturing his skill and scattering his brain. The slain Palestinian is from Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza.
Furthermore, the soldiers killed Sa’adi ِAkram Abu Muammar, 26, east of Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
Sa’adi was father of two daughters, Rahaf, 5, and Aseel, 3, and his wife is seven months pregnant.
The Health Ministry also said the soldiers injured 270 Palestinians in several parts of the Gaza Strip, during the Great Return processions; 166 of them were treated in field clinics, and 104 were rushed to hospitals.
Among the wounded are 60 who were shot with live fire, including 19 children, in addition to nine medics, who were injured by shrapnel or suffered the effects of teargas inhalation.
Since “right of return” protests began on March 30, at least 170 Palestinians have been killed — along with 18,300 more injured — by Israeli gunfire, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Protesters demand the “right of return” to their homes in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.
They also demand an end to Israel’s draconian blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its 2 million inhabitants of many basic commodities.
Additional report from imemc.org
[Photo: Palestinian medics carry a demonstrator who got injured by Israeli forces on 21st Friday continuing “Great March of Return” demonstration near Israel-Gaza border, in east of Shuja’iyya neighborhood, in Gaza on August 17, 2018. Photographer: Ali Jadallah/AA]
