Alwaght- A young Palestinian man has been shot dead by the Israeli forces as he was, among others, protesting the blockade on the enclave by Tel Aviv.
The spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Health, Ashraf al-Qidra, said in a statement that the body of 27-year-old Mohammed Abdul Hai Abu Abada, a resident of the al-Shati refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, arrived at the al-Shifa Hospital on Monday evening, Iran’s Press TV reported.
The young man sustained shots in the chest, apparently by an Israeli sniper northwest of Beit Lahia, the sources familiar with the development said.
A group of 15 boats sailed on Monday from the Gaza coasts to break the over-a-decade-long siege on Gaza. The boats faced the Israeli naval forces' response, the Palestinian sources said.
Tel Aviv imposed a limit of three nautical miles on fishing in the waters off the Gaza shore until August 2014, when Palestinian fishermen were allowed to go out six miles under a ceasefire agreement reached between the Israelis and Palestinians following a deadly 50-day Israeli war in the same month.
Escalating tensions
Over the past few days, the tensions escalated considerably between the two sides.
On Sunday, the Israeli fighter jets carried out airstrikes on Gaza Strip, killing 3 civilians near a fence separating the besieged Palestinian region from the occupied territories. The Israeli military alleged that the targets were “apparently” carrying an explosive device near the protest site.
"A short while ago, three Palestinians approached the security fence in the southern Gaza Strip, attempted to damage it and were apparently involved in placing an improvised explosive device adjacent to it," the military said in a statement. It added that the military’s "aircraft then fired towards them,” the Israeli Defense Forces statement read.
But the Palestinian sources dismissed the allegations, saying that the teens were peacefully protesting the blockade.
On Thursday, the Israeli jets struck Gaza, claiming that they targeted Hamas positions after a rocket was fired from Gaza into the occupied territories but landed in an open area after the much-vaunted Iron Dome anti-rocket system failed to intercept it.
Last Wednesday, the Israeli military aircraft attacked Gaza sites it claimed from which “incendiary balloons” were flown.
Resistance retaliation
Resistant movements in the besieged Gaza Strip have responded to Israeli regime’s most ferocious bombing in recent months with a barrage of rockets, triggering air sirens in several settlements.
The rockets were fired as the Israeli military said it had attacked 80 "targets" in the coastal enclave following fresh protests near a fence where five Palestinians were shot dead.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the resistance groups that operates in Gaza, said it had fired the rockets in retaliation for Israel's killing of the Palestinian protesters on Friday.
Israeli allegations
The Israeli army has accused the Syrian government of instructing a Palestinian group to fire dozens of rockets at the Israel regions from Gaza with Iran's support.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus claimed that “the rockets that were launched against Israel... we know that the orders, incentives were given from Damascus with the clear involvement of the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps' Quds Force.”
The Israeli regime has been striking Syrian territories since the beginning of the conflict in the Arab country.
