Israeli fire wounded more than 40 Palestinians in a series of low-level clashes on Friday as thousands rallied in the West Bank and Gaza to mark Land Day, medical sources said. Demonstrations also took place in annexed east Jerusalem and across Israel, as well as in Jordan and southern Lebanon to mark the annual event that commemorates the deaths of six Arab Israelis at the hands of Israeli forces during protests against land confiscation in 1976. Palestinian medical officials said a total of 311 people were injured in clashes with the Israeli army and police, of whom 44 were wounded by Israeli fire. And one man was seriously hurt after being hit in the head by a tear gas canister. In Gaza, 30 people were injured by live fire, while in the West Bank, 13 people were wounded by rubber bullets; in east Jerusalem, a senior official of the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was hit in the mouth by a rubber bullet, medics said. The Israeli army said it was aware of just two people injured by live fire in Gaza, one of whom rolled a burning tyre at troops near the Erez crossing, and another who approached the border fence and set something alight near Khan Yunis. At Qalandia checkpoint north of Jerusalem, Palestinian youths hurled rocks and set tyres alight, and troops retaliated with a barrage of tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades, an AFP correspondent said. In Bethlehem, several hundred people rallied by the main checkpoint, and a man was seriously injured by a tear gas canister as troops tried to break up the demonstration, medics and an AFP correspondent said. In the northern West Bank, around 1,000 people rallied at Kafr Qaddum while another 500 people gathered in Iraq Burin, with scores of people suffering from tear gas inhalation as troops tried to break up the protests. In Gaza, 30 people were injured by live gunfire after thousands joined a march to mark Land Day, a spokesman for the Hamas emergency services told AFP. Most of the injuries were in Beit Hanun, with 24 people injured near the Erez crossing, while another six were hit near Khan Yunis in the south. The army confirmed firing toward a man who “lit a tyre and rolled it at the soldiers” near the Erez crossing, hitting him in the legs. And military sources confirmed shooting a man in the leg near Khan Yunis after he set something alight very close to the border fence. In south Lebanon, hundreds of Palestinian refugees gathered near the historic Beaufort Castle as large numbers of Lebanese troops looked on, with barbed wire erected to ensure no one approached the flashpoint frontier, an AFP correspondent said. And in Jordan, more than 15,000 people, joined “a peaceful sit-in” at Kafrein, some 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Allenby crossing, security officials said.
Israeli fire wounds 45 as Palestinians mark Land Day
