GAZA: Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager taking part in protests along the Gaza border on Friday , Palestinian health officials said, the first fatality since Gazans marked the one-year anniversary of the weekly demonstrations in March.
Tensions rose after a rocket fired from Gaza wounded seven Israelis north of Tel Aviv on Mar 25. Israel mounted a wave of air strikes following that attack on targets it said belonged to Hamas, the Islamist group which rules the coastal enclave. But Egyptian mediators intervened to avoid further escalation by persuading Israel to lift restrictions on the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza and expand the breadth of Mediterranean waters where Gazans can fish.The protesters are demanding an end to a blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel and Egypt, and want 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 seized Gaza in the 1967 Middle East War and pulled out its troops and settlers in 2005. It says its blockade is necessary to stop weapons reaching Hamas, which has fought three wars with Israel and fired thousands of rockets at it in the past decade.