Some 6,000 Palestinian Arabs protested on Friday along the Gaza border as part of the weekly “March of the Return” demonstrations.
Some of the rioters threw rocks, firebombs and explosives at the fence and at IDF troops, who responded with riot dispersal means.
The Hamas-run “health ministry” in Gaza said 51 protesters were injured, 24 of them as a result of IDF gunfire.
Earlier on Friday, a fire broke out in a forest in the Gaza envelope. Officials are investigating whether the fire was a result of an incendiary balloon.
IDF soldiers were on high alert on the Gaza border ahead of the weekly demonstrations, following the incident overnight Wednesday in which a Hamas terrorist infiltrated into Israel and opened fire on an IDF officer and two soldiers before he was eliminated.
A platoon commander was moderately wounded and two other soldiers were lightly wounded in the shooting incident. The two soldiers who were lightly wounded were released from the Soroka Hospital in Be’er Sheva on Thursday.
