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GAZA’S HEALTH MINISTRY said four Palestinians were killed and several others injured today in a mysterious blast in the southeast part of the Gaza Strip.
The explosion struck a three-wheeled vehicle near one of the five protest camps the Palestinians have set up along the volatile Gaza-Israel border in recent weeks.
The reason for the explosion near the city of Rafah was not immediately known. The Israeli military said it was unaware of any activity in the area of the blast.
Local reports said those who died today were Islamic Jihad militants.
It comes a day after another mass gathering along the border area in which thousands of Palestinians, some burning Israeli flags and torching tires, staged a protest against the ten-year-old blockade.
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One protester was killed yesterday, bringing the death toll to 28 over the last two weeks, with more than 1,500 wounded by Israeli fire since 30 March.
The marches have been organized by Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers, but large turnouts on two preceding Fridays were also driven by Gaza’s dire living conditions and desperation among the territory’s 2 million residents who have been enduring a crippling border closure by Israel and Egypt since 2007.
Rights groups have described the Israeli military’s open-fire regulations as unlawful, saying they permit soldiers to use potentially lethal force against unarmed protesters.
Israel has accused Hamas rulers of using the protests as a cover for attacks and says snipers only target the main instigators.
Hamas leaders have sent mixed signals about whether they plan an eventual mass breach of the border fence. The protests are to culminate in a large rally on 15 May, the 70th anniversary of Israel’s creation.
Palestinians mourn the event as their “nakba”, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were uprooted in the 1948 war over Israel’s creation.
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@Deborah Behan: No one delights in death Deborah .
I am not from an ideology that encourages me to die or kill .
Now if you want to talk about the rights and wrongs if what is happening in the middle east , go for it .
Case closed: “The military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization Al-Quds Brigades said on Saturday that four of its fighters were killed in an explosion during training near Rafah in the Gaza Strip”. No loss.
@Honeybadger197: badger you spent a couple of years using the dead victims of a civil rights war to push your own political agenda. You’re irrelevant. Even as a troll.
@John O’Leary: Later that day John would reflect on his comment and still be unable to figure out what relevance it had to an article about Islamic Jihad terrorists blowing themselves up in Gaza.
@Colm O’Brien: I think you can be angry till you’re blue in the face .
As a younger man I seem to remember Clinton , Arafat And Rabin shaking hands on a deal , what happened .
@pc_comments: Almost every time the conflict between Israel and Hamas escalates it means innocent, and not so innocent Palestinians are killed, with Hamas capturing the events in HD colour. They’ve discovered that any Palestinian death, properly portrayed, in the court of “Public Opinion” can be enormously beneficial to their cause. The only difference between the two is who was responsible for how they died, however Hamas will always claim this was Israel.
Take for example the escalation of hostilities in 2014 (I’m trying to be neutral here) during which 4 Palestinian children were tragically killed on a beach, Hamas immediately blamed Israel, who of course denied it. But nobody listened. There was international outrage at this act, the world condemned it. But Israel wasn’t responsible. It would be a year later before the various investigations concluded the actual cause was was a missile fired at Israel by Hamas which landed in their own territory, and they knew it. They had tried to cover it up.
This sounds like an explosive device went off prematurely or certainly accidentally killing the four Palestinians, Hamas are trying to find a way to blame Israel and exploit their deaths. There’s no doubt they Israel were the intended targets of the explosives, I’m sure everyone will agree that any loss of lives is a tragedy, whether Palestinian or Israeli. However an accident is one thing, murder an other.
@Simon Haden: To be fair I believe you’re correct about some of those details, I had my dates wrong and incorrectly referred to a 2014 Israeli shelling which killed 4 Palestinian children. A reprehensible act, as you say, and they admitted this.
I had mistakenly meant to refer to the 2006 shelling which killed 8 and wounded dozens, while accounts differ and blame is still attributed to Israel by many the evidence contradicts this. Video, forensic analysis, even shrapnel from victims indicates Hamas as the cause.
Another point worth noting is that in November 2006, after an artillery attack that killed 23 civilians, the IDF placed a moratorium on use of artillery to respond to rocket attacks in Gaza, and a five-month ceasefire on the part of Hamas the same month led to a decrease in Palestinian rocket attacks in 2007. Hamas ended its ceasefire on April 24, 2007, firing rockets once again into Israeli territory. Israel had not resumed its use of artillery, responding instead with more precise air-fired missiles to hit targets. From September 2005 through May 2007, Palestinian armed groups fired almost 2,700 rockets into Israel, killing 4 Israeli civilians, and injuring 75 civilians and at least 9 soldiers. You didn’t see these in HD, on TV, social media, protests called over their deaths.
Now, with regard to your comment regarding me. I had to look up the term “Hasbara” and would invite you to retract it or apologise. I can assure you I’m not payed by anyone and have never been there. What I have done is attempt to analyse a situation, most of which appeared somewhat obvious, and give a unbiased, impartial opinion on it. I’d invite you to try it. Open your mind, try it, you may even enjoy the experience.
@Thomas Roche: Nope. “The military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization Al-Quds Brigades said on Saturday that four of its fighters were killed in an explosion during training near Rafah in the Gaza Strip”.
@Andrew Giles: probably a false flag attack by Rupert Murdoch, CNN and People before Profit to force the Federation of Planets to use Photon torpedos and put everyone in FEMA camps, this is how the comments section works now? I think we will need more info before we know whether it was an attack, an accident or explosives were being moved.
@Nek nedyah: of course they did, do you expect the same people who said there was WMD’s in Jobstown and there was a lone shooter in JFK assassination to tell the truth? Ever notice in any movies about WW2 the people in it look so young even though it was more than 70 years ago, coz they are crisis actors, there was no WW2 it was just a way to sell movies and books to sheep. #satire
@Dr Rex Butts: so true about people before profit, they seam to be more interested in foreign Islamic terrorists that what’s happening in this country. I gave them my vote last time but now that I have seen their true colours they can forgot about it.I made a comment on their Facebook page and they cencered it.
News coming out now on the Salisbury incident saying the toxin used was not produced in Russia but could be associated with U.S and U.K!, this is news coming out of Sweden, I don’t believe less than a week after Trump saying it was time to leave Syria that Assad then went and ahead attacked his own people, all very worrisome, looks like they got to Trump, Lies can start a war but the truth can finish it!…. Julian Assange
@Patty Cullinane: The mayor of Dublin wants a months national mourning for them & the Palestinian flag hung over all government buildings in support of them
Probably blew themselves up by mistake, wouldn’t be the first time. They aimed a kite bomb at the IDF yesterday but it blew back and went off among the terrorists.
Palestinians have past time of attaching homemade petrol bombs to a kite and flying them high in the direction of the Israelis,,,the wind must of changed.
@paul whelan: lol at people being shot for protesting. Lol at people being kept in an open prison. Lol at land being robbed and homes being demolished. lol lol lol.
@Deborah Behan: no he is laughing at the jihadi Islamic fighters who blew themselves up on a training drill to bomb Israel! No loss to society by people who want to suppress woman, LGBT people, Christians and anybody who is not following their code of Islam. It baffles me that so called liberals/leftists in Ireland side with a ultra conservative Islamic fascist group like Hamas and others!
@Gavan Duffy: Of course you’re baffled. The IDF never funded Hamas. Israel did sponsor and support a muslim brotherhood offshot called Mujama Al Islamiya (they established a university, clubs, schools etc) as they believed that MAI was not hostile towards Israel and would provide a good counterweight to the terrorism of the PLO. Sheik Yassin then went on to found Hamas shortly after the start of the first intifada.
Many of the refugees confined in the Gaza ghetto can see their family lands through the fence. Gaza is about as big as county Louth. The photo journalist that the Israelis killed last week was 27 and had never been allowed out of the de-facto ghetto for non-Jews. What a life!
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