Almost 70 Palestinians Injured On Friday Protests Near Israel-Gaza Border - Official

Sixty-nine Palestinian nationals have been injured during the ongoing protests near the Israeli border in the Gaza Strip, Gaza Health Ministry Spokesman Ashraf Qidra told Sputnik on Friday

GAZA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th November, 2019) Sixty-nine Palestinian nationals have been injured during the ongoing protests near the Israeli border in the Gaza Strip, Gaza Health Ministry Spokesman Ashraf Qidra told Sputnik on Friday.

The demonstrations, known as the Great March of Return, have been ongoing for 82 weeks and resulted in 314 deaths since March 30, 2018. The protesters demand to be able to return to their ancestral homes, which, according to them, were seized by Israel.

"Sixty-nine Palestinians have been injured today in clashes with the Israeli troops on the border of the Gaza Strip, 29 of them have received gunshot wounds," Qidra said.

The march's committee has announced that next week demonstrators would chant slogans in support of extending the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East's mandate.

One of the main goals of the Palestinian side is to restore the border between Israel and Palestine to where it was before the 1967 Six-Day War, with a possible territorial exchange. Palestinians hope to create their state on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel, on its part, is hostile to the idea of restoring previous borders, and is even more hostile to the idea of sharing Jerusalem, which they consider to be their eternal and undivided capital.