GAZA, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of Palestinian demonstrators clashed on Friday with Israeli soldiers stationed on the border between eastern Gaza Strip and Israel, local media and eyewitnesses said.
They said that Palestinian demonstrators gathered close to the border, waved Palestinian flags, chanted slogans against Israel and threw stones on the Israeli soldiers stationed on the borderline area.
The soldiers fired teargas canisters, rubber bullets and live gunshots to keep the demonstrators away from the fence of the border, according to the eyewitnesses, who added that several demonstrators were injured.
Medics said that at least 10 demonstrators were shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers' gunfire, while dozens suffered suffocation after inhaling the Israeli teargas.
The demonstrations on Friday were part of the weekly anti-Israel protests and rallies, better known as the Great March of Return and Breaking the Israeli siege, which started in late March last year.
The Highest Commission of the Marches had earlier called on the Gaza Strip's residents through loudspeakers of mosques to join the weekly protest which is called "The Land not for Sale."
Gaza Health Ministry had earlier said in a press statement that since the outbreak of the protests in March last year, the Israeli army shot and killed 306 Palestinians and wounded more than 17,000 others with live ammunition in eastern Gaza.
On Thursday, Islamic Hamas movement politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh warned that the calm understandings brokered with Israel by Egypt, the United Nations and Qatar "are in danger."
"The understandings are in danger because the occupation (Israel) is delaying its implementation on the ground," Haniyeh told foreign media representatives in Gaza, adding that "his movement is committed to the calm understandings."
Egypt, the UN and Qatar have been mediating between Israel and Hamas-led militant groups and factions to defuse mounting tensions between the two sides that usually lead to military escalation.
The march of return is calling on Israel to end around 12 years of Israeli blockade that had been imposed on the Gaza Strip right after Hamas seized control of the coastal enclave and routed the security forces of President Mahmoud Abbas.
