Description

Photo:
Scene. Published by Maan News

Map of "Great March of Return" demonstration sites. Published by Haaretz, March, 2018
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GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- At least 14 Palestinians were shot and injured by Israeli forces at the eastern borders of the besieged Gaza Strip, on Friday, including a paramedic and a journalist.

Palestinian crowds gathered alongside the eastern borders of the Gaza Strip to take part in the weekly march to break the ongoing Israeli siege.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that a Palestinian teenage girl was shot and injured in the leg by Israeli forces alongside the eastern borders of Gaza City.

Israeli forces were deployed across the borders of the Gaza Strip to suppress the weekly "Great March of Return" protests.

The ministry confirmed that one paramedic was injured in eastern Gaza City, and one journalist was injured in eastern al-Breij in the central Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces fired tear-gas bombs at a medical station in eastern Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

"The Great March of Return" protests were launched on March 30th by thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza -- which has suffered from a decade-long Israeli siege -- who took to the borders to demand their right of return as refugees to their original homelands, now in present-day Israel.
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Israeli Forces Attack Great Return March Protests, Injuring 14, Including 2 Children

Across the Gaza Strip on Friday, Palestinian civilians held non-violent protests along the Gaza-Israel border as part of the ‘Great March of Return’ that has continued each Friday for nearly ten months. Israeli forces responded by attacking the protesters with live ammunition, concussion grenades and tear gas.

Fourteen Palestinians were hospitalized with gunshot injuries, including a teenage girl, a young boy, a paramedic and a journalist.

This marks the 44th weekly March of Return, a movement which began on March 30th 2018 with Palestinian protesters demanding an end to the Israeli siege and a right to return to their villages and towns occupied by Israel.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, a teenage girl was among those injured. She was shot with a live bullet in the leg on the eastern border of Gaza City.

Another child, a boy, was reportedly injured east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

In addition, a paramedic was injured in eastern Gaza City, and one journalist was injured in eastern al-Breij in the central Gaza Strip.

Video footage shows that the paramedic was targeted by a high velocity tear gas canister fired at close range. These so-called ‘non-lethal weapons’ have caused death and permanent injuries when fired directly toward protesters, which is how they are used by the Israeli military.

Protests took place in at least five locations, in northern, eastern and southern Gaza, where simultaneous protests took place at the border fence with Israel. Israeli snipers were stationed across the fence in military bases, and they fired at protesters as they neared the fence.

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