Israeli forces Wednesday night cracked down on an anti-blockade protest east of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip, according to WAFA correspondent.
He said that Israeli soldiers and snipers, stationed along the borderline in their fortified positions, opened fire towards hundreds of Palestinians demanding an end to the crippling siege imposed on the coastal enclave, injuring dozens.
He added that a protestor sustained moderate wounds after being hit with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the chest and two others sustained light injuries due to being hit with tear gas shrapnel in the thigh and pelvis. The casualties were rushed to hospitals for treatment.
In addition, dozens others suffocated from excessive tear gas inhalation. They were treated at the scene.
Palestinians have been rallying against the ongoing tightened and crippling siege on Gaza and demanded an immediate end to it for the fifth consecutive day.
Over the past two weeks, at least one fatality and some 80 injuries were reported among Palestinian protestors along the border fence.
Two million Palestinians live the Gaza Strip, which has been subjected to a punishing and crippling Israeli blockade for 12 years and repeated onslaughts that have heavily damaged much of the enclave’s infrastructure.
Gaza’s 2-million population remains under “remote control” occupation and a strict siege, which has destroyed the local economy, strangled Palestinian livelihoods, plunged them into unprecedented rates of unemployment and poverty, and cut off from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories and the wider world.
Gaza remains occupied territory, having no control over its borders, territorial waters or airspace. Meanwhile, Israel upholds very few of its responsibilities as the occupying power, failing to provide for the basic needs of Palestinian civilians living in the territory.
Every two in three Palestinians in Gaza is a refugee from lands inside what is now Israel. That government forbids them from exercising their right to return as enshrined in international law because they are not Jews.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency