Alwaght- The Head of Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, Political Bureau Ismail Haniyah on Saturday said that Palestinians are capable of challenging the Israeli occupation even under the most difficult circumstances.
Speaking at the funeral of the Palestinian photojournalist Yaser Murtaja in Gaza, Haniyah said that the Great March of Return represents a battle of awareness to emphasize on national constants, most importantly the right of return.
Haniyah praised the courage of journalist Murtaja who sacrificed his life for the sake of conveying truth to the world.
Murtaja died earlier Saturday after he succumbed to a serious injury he sustained after being deliberately shot in the abdomen by an Israeli sniper while covering peaceful protests near the border fence east of Khuza'a town in the southern Gaza Strip.
Murtaja, a photographer with the Gaza-based Ain Media agency, was shot in the stomach in Khuza'a in the south of the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Hundreds of Palestinian citizens and dozens of journalists took part in Murtaja's funeral chanting slogans calling for prosecuting Israel's leaders over their crimes against the Palestinian people.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said in a statement that 31-year-old Yaser Murtaja, a cameraman for the Palestinian Arabic-language Ain Media news agency, died from his wounds on Saturday.
Palestinian health officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a live bullet had penetrated the side of his abdomen and he lost his life in hospital.
Video footage showed Murtaja lying wounded on a stretcher wearing a navy-blue protective vest marked 'PRESS' in large black capital letters indicating he was a journalist.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said seven other reporters were injured in Friday's protest, in what they described as "deliberate crimes committed by the Israeli army".
In addition to Murtaja's death, the health ministry announced on Saturday the killing of another man, 20-year-old Hamza Abdel Aal, bringing the number of those killed during Friday's protests to nine.
At least 32 Palestinians have now been shot dead since the start of the peacful protests on March 30, when tens of thousands took to the border area with the occupied territories, demanding the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullet and tear gas fired at the rallies by Israeli regime troops, wounded at least 1,400 thus far.
Since 1948, the Israeli regime has denied Palestinian refugees the right to return, despite UN resolutions and international law that upholds people’s right to return to their homelands.
