Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man Friday during weekly protests along the Gaza-Israel border, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
About 6,000 Palestinians gathered along the frontier, the Israeli military said, and some in the crowd hurled explosive devices and grenades toward the fence separating Gaza from Israel and toward a military vehicle.
A military spokesman said troops responded with riot dispersal tactics and opened fire in accordance with “standard operating procedures.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry said that other than the man killed, 40 people were wounded, 18 of them by live fire.
Protesters have staged weekly demonstrations along the border for the last 18 months, calling for an end to a security blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel and Egypt. They also want for Palestinians to have the right to return to land from which their families fled or were forced to flee during Israel’s founding in 1948.
Israel rejects any such return, saying that would eliminate its Jewish majority. The blockade, it says, is necessary to stop weapons reaching Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza, which has fought three wars with Israel in the past decade. The blockade has crippled the economy in Gaza, a narrow coastal strip that is home to about 2 million people.
Meanwhile, the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority will once again accept tax revenues collected on its behalf by Israel, after rejecting the money for months, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.
The PA had stopped taking the money because of a dispute with Israel over stipends paid to the families of Palestinian fighters killed or jailed by Israel.
The change of policy could help the PA relieve a deepening financial crisis. A spokeswoman for the Israeli Finance Ministry said that 1.5 billion Shekels (about $430 million) would be handed over to the PA Sunday.
Hussein al-Sheikh, the PA minister of civil affairs, said that following understandings reached with Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon Thursday, both sides would begin discussions on a range of financial issues next week.
“The agreement was also on transferring a payment from the #PA’s financial dues. The dispute remains over the salaries of the families of #prisoners and #martyrs. We are determined to pay their dues at all costs,” Sheikh said on Twitter.In February, Israel announced it would cut by 5 percent the approximately $190 million in tax revenues it transfers to the Palestinian Authority each month from imports that reach the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip via Israeli ports.
The deducted sum represents the amount of money paid by the PA, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, to families of Palestinians convicted and jailed by Israel for security offences, including deadly attacks on Israelis.
The tax transfers make up about half of the PA’s budget, according to Palestinian Finance Ministry data. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has since February refused to accept the partial tax remittances from Israel, saying the PA is entitled to all the money under interim peace deals.
Israel calls the stipends a “pay for slay” policy and says it encourages violence. Palestinians hail their jailed brethren as heroes in a struggle for an independent state and their families as deserving of support.
Reuters
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