1.2196829-2528958886
Tear gas grenades being pelted during Palestinian protests. Image Credit: AFP

GAZA CITY: 16 Palestinians were killed and at least 1800 hurt in clashes with Israeli soldiers along the Israel-Gaza border, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Friday.

The ministry said those injured on Friday included protesters hit by live bullets and rubber-coated steel pellets, while others were overcome by tear gas. clashes erupted in the context of what Gaza's Hamas rulers at promises would be peaceful protests along the Israel-Gaza border.

Thousands of Palestinians marched near the Gaza-Israel border on Friday in a major protest leading to clashes with Israeli forces, in which more than 50 Gazans were wounded.

At least 10,000 Gazans gathered in different spots along the border, AFP journalists said, with smaller numbers entering within a few hundreds metres of the heavily fortified fence.

Israeli tanks and snipers were positioned on the other side of the border, using tear gas and live fire to force back the protesters.

More than 50 people were wounded by live fire, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

Earlier Friday, before the main protests began, a Palestinian farmer was killed by Israeli tank fire near the border.

Palestinian farmer killed in Israeli shelling

Earlier Report:  Israeli shelling killed a Palestinian farmer in Gaza early on Friday, the enclave's health ministry said, just hours before the launch of mass protests along the border.

Relatives of a Palestinian farmer who was killed along Israel border with Gaza at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip March 30, 2018.  

A second Palestinian was wounded by the tank fire near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, a ministry spokesman said.

The ministry identified the dead man as Omar Samour, 27. Witnesses said he was working his land near the border when the shells hit.

An Israeli army spokesman said: "Two suspects approached the security fence along the southern Gaza Strip and began operating suspiciously.

"In response an (Israeli) tank fired towards them," he said, adding that the army was aware of reports of a death.

The shelling came just hours before the opening of large protest camps near the border, which have prompted the Israeli army to deploy reinforcements, including more than 100 special forces snipers, for fear of mass attempts to break through the security fence.

Hundreds of people, including women and children, are expected to march to the camps in an event dubbed "The Great March of Return".

The protest camps are expected to remain in place for more than six weeks in the runup to the inauguration of the new US embassy in occupied Jerusalem around May 14.

US President Donald Trump's recognition of the disputed city as Israel's capital in December has infuriated Palestinians, who claim its annexed eastern sector as the capital of their future state.

Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2008 and Israeli chief of staff Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot has warned the Gaza protests pose the most serious risk of renewed conflict since he took up his post in 2015.

Rare family protest

Protests along the border are common. The March of Return protest is different because it involves hundreds of Palestinians, including whole families with women and children, camping along the border for weeks.

Five main camp sites have been set up spanning the length of the heavily fortified frontier, from near the Erez border crossing in the north to Rafah, where it meets the Egyptian border in the south.

Cultural events are planned in the larger communal tents, including traditional Palestinian dabke dancing, while tens of thousands of meals will be handed out on Friday, organisers said.

A young couple were married near one of the camps on Thursday evening.

The launch of the protests comes as Palestinians mark Land Day, commemorating the killing of six unarmed Arab protesters in Israel in 1976.

It is expected to begin on Friday morning but swell after the main weekly Muslim prayers at midday.

Organisers say the camps will remain in place until May 15 when Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, or "catastrophe", when more than 700,000 Palestinians fled their land or were expelled during the war that led to the creation of Israel in 1948.

According to the United Nations, some 1.3 million of Gaza's 2 million residents are refugees or their descendants and the protest is calling for them to be allowed to return to land that is now Israel.

Washington's plans to launch its new embassy around the same time, to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the Israeli state, have further stoked Palestinian anger.