Palestinian teen dies after being wounded in Gaza border clashes

Salha was the second fatality from the clashes on Friday, which saw some 13,000 Palestinians violently protest in several spots along the border.

By ANNA AHRONHEIM
Updated: JANUARY 15, 2019 01:55
A Palestinian demonstrator uses a slingshot to hurl stones at Israeli troops during a protest at the Israel-Gaza border fence, in the southern Gaza Strip December 14, 2018. (photo credit: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA / REUTERS)
A Palestinian demonstrator uses a slingshot to hurl stones at Israeli troops during a protest at the Israel-Gaza border fence, in the southern Gaza Strip December 14, 2018.
(photo credit: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA / REUTERS)
A Palestinian boy shot by IDF troops during clashes along the Israel-Gaza border on Friday died on Monday, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported.
Abdul Raouf Ismail Salha, 14, from the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, was hit in the head by live fire in clashes and taken to the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya in critical condition. He was later transferred to the al-Shifa Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on Monday.
Salha was the second fatality from the clashes on Friday, which saw some 13,000 Palestinians violently protest in several spots along the border, burning tires and throwing rocks, as well as throwing firebombs and hand-grenades toward troops and trying to breach the security fence.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, 43 year-old Amal Mustafa Taramsi was killed after she was shot in the head by IDF troops east of Gaza City. Al-Mezan, a Palestinian human rights group, said that Taramsi was around 200 meters from the fence and had taken a flag from fellow protesters when she was shot.
She was the third woman killed since the protests began in March of last year, along with a 21-year-old medic and a 14-year-old girl.
Another 25 were injured during the clashes on Friday, including a journalist and several medics when an ambulance was hit by a gas bomb.
One Israeli soldier was lightly wounded by a stone.
On Sunday, another Palestinian wounded by Israeli fire during Gaza border clashes three weeks ago died from his wounds. He was identified by the Health Ministry as 33-year-old Anwar Quday and had been shot in the neck by IDF troops east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.
According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, over 240 Palestinians have been killed and over 22,000 others injured since the beginning of the Great March of Return protests along Gaza border, which began on March 30, calling for an end to the 12-year-long Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Two Israeli soldiers have been killed since March, one by a Palestinian sniper and another during a botched Special Forces operation inside Gaza; several others have been wounded.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in the blockaded coastal enclave has warned numerous times that health facilities and services will soon be forced to cease operation due to a severe fuel crisis.
“Medical services are about to stop within days due to the fuel crisis, despite austerity measures taken by hospitals and health centers,” Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra was quoted as saying in early January, appealing “to all parties concerned to work immediately to end the fuel crisis.”
The Hamas-run Strip, which is home to over two million people, has been struggling with severe electricity shortages for years.
According to Gaza’s electric company, out of a needed 560MW of electricity, the enclave only gets some 205 MW – 85 MW generated by the strip’s sole power plant and another 120MW purchased from Israel.