GAZA, July 13, 2018 (WAFA) – At least one protester was killed and about 68 others were injured by Israeli forces on Friday as hundreds of protesters made their way to the Gaza-Israel border as part of the ongoing Great March of Return protests, demanding their right to return to their homes in pre-1948 Palestine.

Soldiers manning the border fence fired live bullets and teargas canisters towards the protesters who gathered at many encampments along the border, killing Othman Rami Hilles, 15, and injuring at least 68 others by gunfire.

Other protesters, meanwhile, sustained suffocation as a result of teargas inhalation.

The Great March of Return protests began on March 30 for the commemoration of Land Day, when in 1976 six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli forces after protesting the confiscation of their land.

Demonstrations reached a peak on May 14, which marked 70 years since the Nakba - the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by Zionist militias – on which more than 60 protesters were shot dead by the Israeli forces.

Over 137 Palestinians were killed and some 15,000 others injured since the outbreak of the protests on March 30.

M.N