14 Palestinian protesters wounded by Israeli gunfire — Gaza ministry

GAZA — At least 14 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli gunfire on Friday during protests along the Gaza border, the Palestinian health ministry said, as a lull in deadly violence held after a truce deal last week.

Thousands of demonstrators turned out for the protests but largely kept their distance from the fortified frontier.

Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al Qudra said 14 people were injured by Israeli army fire along the border, including “a child shot in the chest east of the Al Bureij refugee camp” in the central Gaza Strip.

An AFP correspondent said protesters held back from launching burning tyres or balloons carrying flaming material.

Demonstrators were directed “to keep back from the separation fence and to maintain peaceful protests... to give a chance to Egyptian efforts to calm things down”, an organiser told AFP.

It marked the second straight Friday of lighter protests since an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire on November 13 ended the worst flare-up in Gaza since 2014.

Border frictions have soared since the March 30 start of the “Great March of Return”, a mass protest movement demanding the right for Palestinians to return to homes they fled or were expelled from during the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948.

At least 235 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly by Israeli fire during border clashes but also by air strikes.

Two Israeli occupation troops have been killed over the same period