JERUSALEM (AP) — Health officials in the Gaza Strip say a Palestinian man was killed in an Israeli airstrike near the Gaza-Israel border.

The Israeli military says its aircraft targeted an "armed terrorist adjacent to the security fence" in the northern part of the coastal territory on Thursday. The Gaza Health Ministry confirmed the man's death but did not immediately release his identity.

Also, a Palestinian wounded in the mass protest along the border last week died of his wounds on Thursday.

The two fatalities raise the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since last Friday to 21.

The Israeli military is on high alert as more mass demonstrations are expected along the border on Friday.</s>JERUSALEM (AP) - The Latest on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (all times local):

Palestinian health officials say a 25-year-old man has been killed in clashes with Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip.

In this Saturday, March 31, 2018 file photo, a Palestinian uses his phone to take photos while a protester slings stones towards Israeli soldiers on the other side of the fence during clashes with Israeli troops along the Gaza Strip border with Israel, east of Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip. The Israeli military's open-fire policies came under more scrutiny as two amateur videos emerged purportedly showing two Palestinians being shot - one killed and one wounded - while not posing any apparent threat to soldiers. The Israeli military accused Hamas on Sunday of releasing videos that were incomplete, edited or "completely fabricated," but did not elaborate. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the man was shot east of Bureij, near the Israeli border in central Gaza, where he was throwing stones toward soldiers.

It was the first deadly incident since Friday, when 18 Gazans were killed during widespread protests and clashes along the Israeli border.

Large demonstrations are planned again this Friday, raising the possibility of further bloodshed.

Israel's defense minister says the military will not change its tough response to Hamas-led mass protests near Gaza's border with Israel, warning that "anyone who approaches the border is putting their life in danger."

Avigdor Lieberman spoke Tuesday near Gaza, where 18 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire Friday, the first day of what Hamas says will be six weeks of border protests.

Earlier on Tuesday, the international group Human Rights Watch accused Lieberman and other senior officials of "unlawfully" calling for the use of live fire against Palestinian protesters who posed no imminent threat to life.

Lieberman signaled defiance, saying that "we have established clear ground rules and we do not intend to change them. "

Palestinian health officials say more than 750 Palestinians were wounded by army fire Friday.

In this Friday, March 30, 2018 photo, Palestinian women use their mobile phones to take photos and video during clashes with Israeli troops along the Gaza Strip border with Israel, east of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip. The Israeli military's open-fire policies came under more scrutiny as two amateur videos emerged purportedly showing two Palestinians being shot - one killed and one wounded - while not posing any apparent threat to soldiers. The Israeli military accused Hamas on Sunday of releasing videos that were incomplete, edited or "completely fabricated," but did not elaborate. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)</s>GAZA, April 5 (Reuters) - Israeli fire killed a Palestinian at the Gaza border on Thursday and another died of wounds suffered several days ago, health officials said, bringing the number of Palestinian dead in a week of frontier protests and violence to 19.

The Israeli military said one of its aircraft targeted an armed militant near the security fence along the Gaza Strip.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians began a six-week-long protest last Friday in tent encampments along the fenced border of the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, an enclave of two million ruled by the militant Hamas Islamist group.

The demonstrators are pressing for a right of return for refugees and their descendants to what is now Israel.</s>KHUZA'A, Palestinian Territory — Palestinian activists chanted "death is better than humiliation" as three-wheelers stacked with old tires drove into a tent camp in a barley field near Gaza's border. The tires are to be burned at a mass protest on Friday, in hopes clouds of black smoke will shield demonstrators from Israeli snipers.

For some of the young Gaza men hanging around the camp, the chant wasn't just rousing hyperbole. They have been throwing stones and burning tires near the border in recent days, despite new warnings by Israel's minister that anyone getting too close to the fence risks getting killed.

Nahed Qudih, a 17-year-old high school student, said he has nothing to lose by joining his peers in the seemingly futile and dangerous act of running toward armed soldiers who fire from behind a fence, some perched on high earthen berms providing cover.

Qudih's family would like to see him realize his dream of becoming an engineer, but "not an idle engineer," he said, referring to bleak job prospects amid rising Gaza unemployment, now at 48 , according to the Palestinian statistics bureau.

The blockade has devastated Gaza's economy, made it virtually impossible for people to enter and exit the territory and left residents with just a few hours of electricity a day. Tap water is undrinkable and the Mediterranean coastline has been polluted with untreated waste.

Other blockade-busting tactics by Hamas have failed over the years, including three cross-border wars with Israel and repeated rounds of unsuccessful power-sharing talks with the West Bank-based Abbas. The last round collapsed last month, in part because Hamas refused to disarm.

Hamas leaders have billed the final protest, set for May 15, as the "Great March of Return" of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, implying they would try to enter Israeli territory. But they have stopped short of specifically threatening a mass breach of the border fence.

Three senior Hamas official said the group wants to avoid another devastating war with Israel, but border tensions could quickly escalate — especially if Israel makes good on threats to target Hamas positions deeper inside Gaza unless the protests stop.

At a minimum, Hamas hopes to draw international attention to Gaza and improve leverage if Egypt brokers a new round of talks with Abbas, the officials said. In a sign that the pressure is working, the Egyptian intelligence met with Abbas this week to try to prevent a Gaza escalation.

It argues that it has a right to defend its border, alleging that Hamas used last week's protest as cover for trying to damage the border fence, plant explosives and, in one incident, fire on soldiers. Military officials believe Hamas is encouraging people to break through the border.

Israel has rejected criticism of open-fire orders that allowed soldiers last Friday to target the "main instigators" of protests and those approaching the fence. Rights groups have said firing at protesters who don't pose an imminent threat to the lives of soldiers is "blatantly unlawful."

Israel argues that Hamas could have ended the suffering of Gaza's 2 million people by disarming and renouncing violence. Hamas has refused to give up its weapons — even at the cost of derailing talks on getting Abbas to assume the burden of governing Gaza, a prerequisite for opening Gaza's borders.

Critics say the closure policy has backfired by largely harming Gaza civilians, while leaving Hamas solidly in control. They also accuse Israel of using the blockade to advance political aims, such as deepening a separation of Gaza from the West Bank, both sought for a future Palestinian state.

Musab al-Qasas, 26, unemployed and supervising tire collection Tuesday, said the protests gave him and his friends a sense of purpose. He said he has been injured twice in protests near the border since President Donald Trump recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December.

"People come here out of frustration," said Qudih, the high school student. "If the situation is good, you won't see anybody here."</s>Palestinian activist uses a mirror to blind Israeli solders at the Israel-Gaza border, in the southern Gaza Strip Thomson Reuters By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ori Lewis

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian man was killed by Israeli gunfire in Gaza on Tuesday, Palestinian medics said, raising the death toll from clashes along the border to 17, and Israel's defence minister warned further protests would be met with similar force.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians began a six-week-long protest last Friday in tent encampments set up along the fenced border of the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip. They are pressing for a right of return for refugees to the villages and towns where their families lived before 1948 in what is now Israel.

Sixteen Palestinians died after being shot by Israeli troops on the first day of the protest, Palestinian medical officials said. The 17th Palestinian killed, a 25-year-old man, was standing about 50 meters (165 feet) from the fence when he was shot, his father, Omar Ararat, told Reuters.

"He was standing next to me; he posed no danger to them but they killed him," he said. An Israeli military spokeswoman had no initial information on the latest reported fatality.

The deaths occurred in the course of one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations along the 65-km (40-mile) border in years. Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman defended Israel's response.

"I warn (Gaza protesters) against continuing the provocation. We have set clear game rules and we do not intend to change them. Every person who comes close to the fence is endangering their lives," he said on a visit to the border.

"This was a well-organised provocation by Hamas's armed wing in an attempt to harm our sovereignty, to disrupt daily life and to disturb Israelis on their Seder (traditional Passover meal) night. We are doing what we must do."

Gaza, a small coastal enclave, has been ruled by Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist movement sworn to Israel's destruction, for much of the time since Israeli soldiers and settlers withdrew in 2005 after a 38-year occupation.

The military said its troops used live fire only against people trying to sabotage the fence or rolling burning tyres and throwing rocks. Palestinian organizers said they had called for a peaceful protest and Hamas denied that its fighters had fired on Israeli forces, using the crowds as cover, though it said five of the dead were members of its armed wing.

Lieberman has characterized most of those killed last week as "terrorists that we know well who are active in the armed wing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They were not innocent civilians who were part of a civil protest".

In Gaza, protesters have begun gathering thousands of mirrors which they hope to use to blind Israeli soldiers on the other side of the fence. The protesters say they also intend to use laser pointers to distract Israeli army sharpshooters.

"We were saddened by the martyrdom of 16 of us, some of them we knew as friends. This Friday we shall rise to challenge the occupation which killed them, and show them we are not afraid," said Issa Abu Jamea', 29, from Khan Younis in Gaza's south.

He said he had taken part in protests every Friday since U.S. President Donald Trump's Dec. 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and to move the U.S. Embassy to the city. Its eastern half was taken by Israel in a 1967 war and is wanted by Palestinians for the capital of a future state.

Palestinian organizers said they expect the number of participants to again swell to tens of thousands on Friday.

Riding on donkey carts and rickshaws, protesters scoured towns and villages across Gaza on Tuesday collecting old tyres from mechanics' shops, fields and garbage dumps. The thick, black smoke emitted by burning tyres can reduce the effects of tear gas used by Israel security forces, they say.

Abu Jamea' said that he and his friends had collected about a thousand tyres. The hash tag "Jomaat Al-Kawshook", or "Friday of Tyres", was trending on Twitter.

"We have prepared mirrors, lasers and tyres to burn ... they will help to distract Israeli snipers and blind them. We aim to protect ourselves and the protesters," Abu Jamea' said.

In Gaza City, Daoud Shehab, a protest organizer who is also spokesman for the militant Islamic Jihad, urged participants to remain peaceful. "We urge our people not to fall for Israeli provocation attempts," said Shebab.

The protest action is set to wind up on May 15, when Palestinians mark the "Naqba", or "Catastrophe", when hundreds of thousands fled or were driven out of their homes during violence that culminated in war in May 1948 between the newly created state of Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Israel has long ruled out any right of return, fearing it would lose its Jewish majority.</s>GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Large crowds of flag-waving Palestinian protesters marched toward the Gaza border fence with Israel on Friday, some of them throwing stones and drawing Israeli fire that officials said killed at least five people.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said at least 500 Palestinians were hurt by live fire, rubber-coated steel pellets or tear gas fired by Israeli forces at several locations along the fence, but did not provide the breakdown.

Earlier Friday, in a separate incident, a Palestinian farmer was killed by an Israeli tank shell while he was working in his field before dawn, the ministry said.

The protests had begun as mass sit-ins organized by Gaza’s Hamas rulers, but quickly spun out of control.

Israel’s military said thousands of Palestinians rolled burning tires and threw stones at forces stationed on the border, and that troops opened fire at the “main instigators.”

Palestinian witnesses said hundreds of Palestinians participated in clashes, while thousands more gathered in tent encampments set up in five sites several at a distance of several hundred meters from the border.

Such mass gatherings near the border signal a new tactic by Hamas — and one that might prove more challenging to Israel’s military than previous smaller protests.

Military officials have said they will respond harshly to any breaches of the border fence. At the same time, a rising number of casualties will likely stoke more border tensions, a scenario Israel hopes to avoid.

The sit-ins are seen as a new attempt by Hamas to break a crippling, decade-old Gaza border blockade by Israel and Egypt that has made it increasingly difficult for the Islamic militant group to govern.

Other tactics over the years, including Hamas’ cross-border wars with Israel and attempts to reconcile with political rival Mahmoud Abbas, the West Bank-based Palestinian president, have failed to end Gaza’s isolation.

“The large crowds … reflect the Palestinian people’s determination to achieve the right of return and break the siege and no force can stop this right,” he said.

Friday’s actions are to be the first in a series of protests planned in Gaza in coming weeks. The protests are to culminate on May 15, the 70th anniversary of Israel’s creation, with a march through the border fence.

Palestinians commemorate the date as the anniversary of their mass displacement and uprooting during the 1948 Mideast war over Israel’s creation. The vast majority of Gaza residents are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven from communities in what is now Israel.

Israel’s military said ahead of Friday’s protests that it doubled its standard troop level along the border, deploying snipers, special forces and paramilitary border police units, which specialize in riot control.

Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, commander of the Israeli military’s Southern Command, which includes the border, said Friday that “we are identifying attempts to carry out terror attacks under the camouflage of riots.”

He urged Gaza residents to stay away from the border, and held Hamas responsible for any violence there.

Previous protests near the border fence in recent months have turned deadly, with Israeli soldiers firing live bullets at Palestinians burning tires, throwing stones or hurling firebombs.

On Friday, mosques across Gaza called on Palestinians to join the protests. Buses took protesters to the border area, including five tent encampments set up from north to south, several hundred meters from the border fence. By noon, thousands had arrived at the encampments.

Ghanem Abdelal, 50, distributed water bottles to family members sitting on a map near one of the tents east of Gaza City. He said he hopes the protest “will bring a breakthrough, an improvement, to our life in Gaza.”

Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ supreme leader, visited the tents, along with Gaza leader Yehiyeh Sinwar.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said five people were killed by Israeli fire in subsequent clashes, including a 16-year-old boy and a 33-year-old man.

Several hours before the confrontations, a Palestinian farmer identified as 27-year-old Amr Samour was killed by an Israeli tank shell in southern Gaza, the Health Ministry said.

Israel said troops had directed tank fire at suspicious figures near the border fence in the area.

Yasser Samour, a relative and fellow farmer, said Amr Samour was harvesting parsley before dawn, in hopes of selling it fresh in the market later in the day.

“I was working on the next field,” Yasser Samour said. “We heard shelling landing on the field where Amr works. We ran there and found him hit directly with a shell. We were more than a kilometer away from the border.”

Another farmer was wounded in the leg by shrapnel, Samour said.

Associated Press writers Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and Karin Laub in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.</s>The Israeli military said the man killed in the airstrike before dawn Thursday had approached the border fence with an assault rifle. It released a grainy video showing the armed man walking in the dark.

The deaths brought to 21 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire over the past week, including 15 who had been involved in the protests.

JERUSALEM—An Israeli airstrike killed a Gaza man Thursday, while a second Palestinian died of wounds sustained in last week’s mass protest along the Gaza-Israel border, officials said.

A new round of protests along the border is expected on Friday, raising the prospect of further bloodshed.

The protest march last week, largely organized by Gaza’s Hamas leaders, had been billed as the first of several weeks of intermittent protests against a stifling, decade-old Israeli blockade.

Hamas leaders have portrayed the final protest, set for May 15, as the “Great March of Return” of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, implying they would try to enter Israeli territory. But they have stopped short of specifically threatening a mass breach of the border fence.

The Israeli military has said it will not allow anyone to breach the border fence and has beefed up forces in the area, with snipers and other special units. The military was on high alert ahead of Friday.

Nickolay Mladenov, the UN’s Mideast envoy, urged both sides to show caution on Friday.

“Israeli forces should exercise maximum restraint and Palestinians should avoid friction at the Gaza fence,” he said.

“Demonstrations and protests must be allowed to proceed in a peaceful manner,” he added. “Civilians, particularly children, must not be intentionally put in danger or targeted in any way.”

Meanwhile, Gaza health officials said a 34-year-old Palestinian who was seriously injured in last week’s protests died of his injuries Thursday.

Hundreds more were wounded by live fire last week, according to Palestinian health officials. Of the 21 dead so far, 15 were killed during border protests, and videos and witness accounts indicate that most were not armed or carrying out attacks at the moment they were killed.

Hamas announced it is distributing money to the families of those killed and wounded in Friday’s clashes. Families of those killed receive $3,000 (U.S.). Wounded receive $500 or $200 depending on the injury.

Hamas said in a statement the money is part of its “national and social responsibility in boosting the steadfastness” of the people.

Israel’s military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis, alleged that Hamas is exploiting Gaza residents by urging them to attend the protests and “under the cover of these civilians carry out terror activities.”

Manelis said several Israeli communities are close to the Gaza border and warned of the consequences of Palestinians breaching the fence.

Israel has defended its actions by saying the marches are planned by Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction. It says the border fence was attacked with burning tires, stones and firebombs and, in one case, by a pair of gunmen in recent days. It says its snipers carefully targeted only the main “instigators,” and accuses Hamas of using the crowds as cover to stage attacks.

“By defending the border fence, the IDF (army) is protecting civilian homes,” the military said on Twitter.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned in a radio interview on Thursday that Israel would respond harshly to any attempt to violate its security. Earlier this week, Lieberman said Gazans who approach the fence would be risking their lives.

Rights groups have condemned orders to shoot unarmed protesters as unlawful, saying lethal force can only be used if soldiers face an apparent imminent threat to their lives. The Israeli group B’Tselem, in a rare appeal, urged Israeli soldiers to refuse such orders.

The United Nations and the European Union have called for independent investigations into the shootings.

Meanwhile, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel held separate meetings this week with Israeli officials and with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the West Bank-based rival of Hamas, in hopes of preventing an escalation on the Gaza border.

In recent months, Egypt had tried to broker a deal that would have enabled Abbas to take back control in the Gaza Strip, more than a decade after Hamas seized the territory from forces loyal to him.

Hamas, in turn, had hoped that Israel and Egypt would end their blockade of Gaza if the group handed the reins of government to Abbas. However, talks broke down last month, in part because Hamas refused to disarm.

Hamas and Israel have fought three wars in the Gaza Strip since 2008.

Abbas told the Egyptian intelligence this week that he would not waste any more time negotiating a deal with Hamas and that he would only assume responsibility for Gaza if Hamas hands over all powers, including control over the security apparatus, according to two Palestinian officials.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the meeting with reporters.</s>What should we call the violent clashes along Israel’s border with Gaza this weekend, which cost 17 Palestinians—at least five of whom were members of the armed wing of Hamas, according to Hamas—their lives? Much of the press, foreign diplomats, and Senator Bernie Sanders called them “protests.” But is that really the right word for attempts by masses of people organized and incited by a terrorist organization to breach the border of a sovereign country using plastic explosives? No.

While the usual suspects are busy denouncing Israel for war crimes, two facts mustn’t be ignored and cannot be explained away, no matter how critical one is of the Jewish state and its policies.

The first is that Hamas again used innocent civilians, many of them children, in its cynical quest to score propaganda points against Israel. Just as it had murdered at least 160 Palestinian children by forcing them to dig the tunnels used to allow gunmen to infiltrate Israel, and just as it continues to use civilians as human shields to protect its arsenals and rocket factories, the terror organization again put the most vulnerable on the line to further its murderous cause. Israel Defense Forces soldiers facing the violent mob this weekend spotted a seven-year-old girl, prompted by Hamas to run into harm’s way. “When the IDF troops realized it was a girl,” the army spokesperson’s office reported, “they picked her up and made sure that she could get back to her parents safely.” No matter how sympathetic you may be to the Palestinians’ national aspirations, the use of children—or their parents—as human shields to generate favorable imagery is beyond the pale.

Even more telling, however, is the question of what, in the first place, Hamas was hoping to achieve by marching civilians en masse on Israel’s border. Israel no longer occupies even one inch of Gaza. Every Israeli settlement in Gaza was uprooted. Every Israeli settler who ever lived in Gaza—including thousands who were born there—was relocated to Israel, many of them by force. For those who see Israeli settlements as inherent obstacles to peace, Gaza today is proof that they are not. The responsibility for Gaza’s continued suffering lies entirely elsewhere.

Having withdrawn from the strip in 2005, Israel no longer has any territorial claims on Gaza; but Gaza, as this weekend makes painfully clear, still has territorial claims on Israel. In its continuous attacks on their neighbors to the north, and in its most recent efforts to cross into Israel, Hamas has again proven what the organization’s charter so clearly states, namely that its singular goal is the utter and absolute destruction of the Jewish state. It wants all of the land, not peace or coexistence or any other sensible and reasonable goal, which is why any territorial compromise on Israel’s behalf is nothing more than an invitation to the next, even bloodier conflict.

Think that’s Zionist propaganda? Here is the leader of Hamas himself, explaining the point of last week’s protests: The “March of Return,” said Yahya Sinwar, “affirms that our people can’t give up one inch of the land of Palestine. The protests will continue until the Palestinians return to the lands they were expelled from 70 years ago.”

It’s a deeply depressing reality, and it’s likely to exasperate the beautiful souls among us who’d like to see this conflict resolved and who continue to cheer for some sort of magical process that would somehow stop the hostilities. As this weekend so abundantly and painfully proves, that kind of talk is futile.

The only path forward is for the Palestinians to abandon the futility of their ongoing and senseless violence, and come to terms with Israel’s right to exist. Until they do that, we’re likely to see more mindless bloodshed and more pain, all of it the fault of a craven leadership sacrificing its people on the altar of crazed, radical, irredentist hatred.</s>Israeli fire killed a Palestinian at the Gaza border on Thursday and another died of wounds suffered several days ago, health officials said, bringing the number of Palestinian dead in a week of frontier protests and violence to 19.

The Israeli military said one of its aircraft targeted an armed militant near the security fence along the Gaza Strip.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians began a six-week-long protest last Friday in tent encampments along the fenced border of the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, an enclave of two million ruled by the militant Hamas Islamist group.

The demonstrators are pressing for a right of return for refugees and their descendants to what is now Israel.</s>An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza early on Thursday killed a Palestinian, while a second man died from wounds sustained in last week's mass protest along the Gaza-Israel border, officials said.

The fatalities bring to 21 the number of people killed in confrontations in the volatile area over the past week.

 

 A new round of protests along the border is expected on Friday, raising the prospect of further bloodshed.

 

 The protest march last week, largely organized by Gaza's Hamas rulers, had been billed as the first of several weeks of intermittent protests against a stifling decade-old Israeli blockade.

 

 Hamas leaders have portrayed the final protest, set for May 15, as the "Great March of Return" of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, implying they would try to enter Israeli territory. But they have stopped short of specifically threatening a mass breach of the border fence.

 

 The Israeli military has said it will not allow anyone to breach the border fence and has beefed up forces in the area, with snipers and other special units. The military was on high alert ahead of Friday.

 

 In the latest violence, the military said an aircraft had targeted an "armed terrorist adjacent to the security fence" in northern Gaza early in the morning. The Gaza Health Ministry confirmed the man's death but did not immediately release his identity.

 

 It also confirmed the death of a man who was wounded in last Friday's protests. Hundreds more were wounded by live fire last week, according to Palestinian health officials. Of the 21 dead so far, 15 were killed during border protests, and videos and witness accounts indicate that most were not armed or carrying out attacks at the moment they were killed.

 

 Israel has defended its actions by saying the marches are planned by the militant Islamic Hamas group, which is sworn to Israel's destruction. It says the border fence was attacked with burning tires, stones and firebombs, and in one case, by a pair of gunmen. It says its snipers carefully targeted only the main "instigators," and accuses Hamas of using the crowds as cover to stage attacks.

 

 "By defending the border fence, the IDF is protecting civilian homes," the military said on Twitter, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

 

 Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned in a radio interview on Thursday that Israel would respond harshly to any attempt to violate its security. Earlier this week, Lieberman said Gazans who approach the fence would be risking their lives.

 

 Rights groups have condemned orders to shoot unarmed protesters as unlawful, saying lethal force can only be used if soldiers face an apparent imminent threat to their lives. The Israeli group B'Tselem, in a rare appeal, urged Israeli soldiers to refuse such orders.

 

 The United Nations and the European Union have called for independent investigations into the shootings.

 

 Meanwhile, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel held separate meetings this week with Israeli officials and with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the West Bank-based rival of Hamas, in hopes of preventing an escalation on the Gaza border.

 

 In recent months, Egypt had tried to broker a deal that would have enabled Abbas to take back control in the Gaza Strip, more than a decade after Hamas seized the territory from forces loyal to him.

 

 Hamas, in turn, had hoped that Israel and Egypt would end their blockade Gaza if the group handed the reins of government to Abbas. However, talks broke down last month, in part because Hamas refused to disarm.

 

 Hamas and Israel have fought three wars in the Gaza Strip since 2009.

 

 Abbas told the Egyptian intelligence this week that he would not waste any more time negotiating a deal with Hamas and that he would only assume responsibility for Gaza if Hamas hands over all powers, including control over the security apparatus, according to two Palestinian officials.

 

 All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the meeting with reporters.
Protests enter a second week, with the death toll from last week's clashes at the Israeli-Gazan border rising to 19. Hamas organisers direct participants to stay well back from the border fence to prevent further violence.