Israeli troops killed three Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy, after opening fire on protests at the Gaza Strip border on Friday as protesters continued demonstrations for the 11th consecutive Friday against Israel's decades-long occupation and decade-long blockade of their territory. Friday's march coincides with "Jerusalem Day," instituted by post-Islamic Revolution Iran as an annual protest against Israeli control over the holy city. Al-Quds Day was first observed in 1979 in Iran by Imam Khomeini, the chief architect of the Islamic revolution, soon after the revolution. At least 115 Palestinian protesters, the vast majority unarmed, have been killed and close to 3,800 have been wounded by Israeli army fire since the marches began in late March. The Hamas-led demonstrations have been fueled by despair over a decade-old Israel-Egyptian blockade, imposed after the Islamic militant group seized control of the territory. Israeli forces have killed at last 120 Palestinians in protests along the border since a campaign was launched on March 30 to demand the right to return to ancestral lands that are now part of Israel, hospital officials say. This year, Quds Day has become a larger rallying cry as it comes after months of mass protests in Gaza which proved Israel’s inability to stop the Palestinians despite widespread use of deadly force against unarmed protesters. Israel says it's defending its sovereign border, including nearby communities, and accuses Hamas of trying to carry out attacks under the guise of the mass protests. In a video message to a Quds Day conference in the besieged Gaza Strip on Thursday, Ali Akbar Velayati said that 40 years after Imam Khomeini's declaration of Ramadan's last Friday as the International Quds Day, Palestinians have been able to push back Israeli occupation forces and "reverse the regime's expansionism." In a message on Thursday, the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani invited people to attend the International Quds Day demonstrations in large numbers, saying “Quds day is a historic day when everybody protests against tyrants and voices support of an oppressed people who have been displaced from their homes during the past 70 years,” according to the official website of Iran's presidency.
On Quds Day – the last Friday of Ramadan – thousands of Palestinians protest near the Gaza border fence. Israeli troops fire live rounds and tear gas, killing four people and injuring over 600.