Some of the worst violence in the Palestinian uprising is taking place where the intifada first began two years ago: in the Gaza Strip.
A 17-year-old Palestinian, Nasser al-Kejek of Gaza, became the 626th mortality of the intifada Tuesday, just four days short of its second anniversary.
According to officials at the Ma’amadani Hospital in Gaza, the youth was fatally wounded by a plastic bullet in his chest, fired by Israeli security forces dispersing stone-throwers.
The Israel Defense Force said it was investigating the killing.
At the same time, a 10-year-old Arab boy was rushed to Ahli Hospital in Gaza, with a gunshot wound in his head.
Arab sources said 15 demonstrators were wounded in rioting throughout the territory Tuesday.
Bezelem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reported Tuesday that about 132 Arab children under age 17 have been shot and killed since the uprising began. They include 37 children under the age of 13.
In addition, 43 Israelis have died as a result of intifada-related violence.
Tension rose in the Gaza Strip after the IDF destroyed a Palestinian gang operating in the Nablus area of the West Bank, killing its top leaders and arresting several others.
The gang, known as the Black Panthers, was believed responsible for assassinating fellow Arabs suspected of collaborating with the Israeli authorities.
The death of a 10-year-old Palestinian girl in a clash Sunday with Israeli troops in Gaza’s Shati refugee camp only added to the fury.
The pervasive unrest in the Gaza Strip is also attributable to the struggle for control of the local population between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement.
Meanwhile, concerned Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip held an emergency meeting Tuesday night to plan a protest against the government’s agreement to allow some 6,000 Palestinians to enter the territory from Egypt.
The move is in compliance with the terms of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty of 1979.
The first refugee families were expected to cross Wednesday from the Egyptian half of Rafah into the Israeli half of the town, which is bisected by the border between the Gaza Strip and Sinai.
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