UPDATE - Palestinians swarm Gaza-Israel buffer zone on 35th week

UPDATES WITH INJURIES, ADDS WEST BANK CLASHES

By Mohamed Majed

GAZA CITY/RAMALLAH (AA) - For the 35th consecutive Friday, thousands of Palestinian demonstrators gathered along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone to take part in ongoing rallies against the Israel’s decades-long occupation.

In a statement, Gaza’s National Authority for Breaking the Siege renewed its call to the people of Gaza to take part in the ongoing protests.

In a separate statement, Hazem Qasim, a spokesman for resistance faction Hamas (which has governed the strip since 2007), said: "The Palestinian masses continue to prove their ability to defy Israel’s occupation."

"Our people’s steadfastness will lead to the achievement of our goals, not least of which is the end of the siege on Gaza," he added.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 12 Palestinians were injured after Israeli forces deployed near the buffer zone opened fire on unarmed demonstrators.

The ministry provided no further information regarding the seriousness of the injuries.

Protesters demand the right to return to their homes and villages in historical Palestine, from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.

They also demand an end to Israel’s 12-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its roughly two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.

Since the rallies began on March 30, more than 210 Palestinians have been killed -- and thousands more injured -- by Israeli troops deployed along the other side of the buffer zone.

In a related development, dozens of Palestinians were injured by Israeli troops while taking part in Friday demonstrations held to protest Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, according to witnesses.

“Four demonstrators were injured by rubber bullets, including a child and a foreign activist, in the village of Kafr Qadoum near the West Bank city of Tulkarm,” local resistance activist Raed Shtewi told Anadolu Agency.

Dozens of others suffered excessive teargas inhalation when Israeli troops forcibly dispersed the protest, he said.

According to Palestinian figures, more than 700,000 Israeli Jews currently live on 196 settlements (built with the Israeli government’s approval) and more than 200 settler outposts (built without the government’s approval) across the occupied West Bank.

International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity there as illegal.