At least 10 Palestinians killed and scores wounded on Gaza border

Israeli troops killed at least 10 people, including a photo journalist, on Friday in the second mass protest in a week along Gaza's volatile border, as Palestinians torched piles of tires to create a smoke screen to block the view of snipers.

Friday's deaths brought to 31 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire over the past week, including 19 protesters. 

Gaza's Health Ministry said 1,070 people were wounded on Friday, including 293 by live fire. It said 33 of those wounded were in serious condition. Among those hurt were 12 women and 48 minors, the ministry added.

Yasser Murtaja, a photographer with the Gaza-based Ain Media agency, succumbed to his wounds on early Saturday, the ministry said.

Friday's march was the second in what Gaza's Hamas rulers said would be several weeks of protests against a decade-old border blockade of the territory. 

Israel has accused the Hamas of using the protests as a cover for attacking Israel's border, and has warned that those approaching the fence put their lives at risk.

On Friday, thousands of Palestinians streamed to five tent encampments that organizers had set up, each about several hundred metres from the border fence.

In one camp near the border community of Khuzaa, smaller groups of activists moved closer to the fence after Friday's noon prayers.

The demonstrators are pressing for a right of return to what is now Israel for refugees – and their descendants – of the 1948 war surrounding the country's creation. Refugees comprise most of the two million population of Israeli-blockaded Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas, one of two major political parties in Palestine. 

"I, like everyone around here, am coming to liberate their land,” Hekam Kuhail, 60, told Reuters, flashing a v-for-victory sign as she had her photograph taken near the border.

Demonstrators torched large piles of tires, engulfing the area in black smoke meant to shield them from Israeli snipers; the faces of some of the activists were covered in black soot.

Israeli troops on the other side of the fence responded with live fire, tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets and water cannons.

The Associated Press reported that leader in Gaza, Yehiyeh Sinwar, visited the Khuzaa camp, receiving a hero's welcome. He was surrounded by hundreds of supporters who chanted, "We are going to Jerusalem, millions of martyrs."

Sinwar told the crowd that the world should "wait for our great move, when we breach the borders and pray at Al-Aqsa," referring to the major Muslim shrine in Jerusalem.

With black tire smoke and Israeli tear gas rising into the air, Palestinian youths used T-shirts, cheap medical masks and perfume to try and protect themselves. Israel was also trying to douse burning tires with fire hoses from its side of the border.

Sharpshooters

The Israeli military has stationed sharpshooters on its side of the frontier to deter Palestinians from trying to break through the fence into Israeli territory. Many of those killed were militants, according to Israel.

The Israeli military said protesters on Friday hurled several explosive devices and firebombs under cover of smoke, and that several attempts to cross the fence were thwarted. The military said it brought in a huge fan to disperse the tire smoke.

After the first tires started burning, several young men with gunshot wounds began arriving at a field clinic at the camp.

An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, described the protests as "riots," and said Hamas organizers are trying to use them to "insert terrorists into Israel."

"If they are actively attacking the fence, if they are throwing a molotov cocktail that is within striking distance of Israeli troops or similar activities, then those persons, those rioters, become, may become, a target," he said.

Mohammed Ashour, 20, who had been among the first to set tires on fire, was shot in the right arm.

"We came here because we want dignity," he said resting on a stretcher before paramedics transported him to the strip's main hospital.

Yehia Abu Daqqa, a 20-year-old student, said he had come to honor those killed in previous protests.

"Yes, there is fear," he said of the risks of advancing toward the fence. "We are here to tell the occupation that we are not weak."

Criticism of Israel

Seventeen of the 20 Palestinian dead were killed by Israeli gunfire on the first day of protests a week ago, medics said. The deaths drew international criticism of Israel's response, which human rights groups said involved live fire against demonstrators posing no immediate threat to life.

The United Nations human rights office urged Israel to exercise restraint.

"We are saying that Israel has obligations to ensure that excessive force is not employed. And that if there is unjustified and unlawful recourse to firearms, resulting in death, that may amount to a wilful killing. And that's a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention," UN human rights spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell said in Geneva.

Israel says it is doing what it must to defend its border and that its troops have been responding with riot dispersal means and fire "in accordance with the rules of engagement."

An Israeli military spokesman said on Friday that the army "will not allow any breach of the security infrastructure and fence, which protects Israeli civilians."

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem urged protesters to keep rallies peaceful. "Maintaining the peaceful nature of the protests will strike all fragile Zionist propaganda," he said.

The Israeli government has ruled out any right of return for Palestinian refugees, fearing that the country would lose its Jewish majority.

The United States has criticised protest organisers. "We condemn leaders and protesters who call for violence or who send protesters – including children – to the fence, knowing that they may be injured or killed," President Donald Trump's Middle East peace envoy, Jason Greenblatt, said on Thursday.

The protest action is set to wind up on May 15, when Palestinians mark the "Nakba," or "Catastrophe," when hundreds of thousands fled or were driven out of their homes during violence that culminated in war in May 1948 between the newly created state of Israel and its Arab neighbours.

At the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ministerial summit in Azerbaijan minister called for peace in Palestine.