GAZA CITY: Friends and relatives of Palestinian Omar Hassan Abu Al-Nile, 12, who died of wounds he sustained during a Zionist attack last week, mourn during his funeral in Gaza City yesterday.-AFP

JERUSALEM: A 12-year-old Palestinian boy shot last week by Zionist soldiers during clashes along the border with Gaza has died of his injuries, the territory's health ministry said yesterday. Omar Hassan Abu Al-Nile was hit during clashes last Saturday on the sidelines of a demonstration near the border fence separating the Gaza Strip and the Jewish state, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

He "succumbed to his injuries," the Gaza's health ministry said in a statement. The August 21 unrest left around 40 people wounded, according to Gaza's Hamas rulers, including a 32-year-old Palestinian man who died on Wednesday. The Zionist army said it had responded with live fire and other measures to Palestinian "rioters" who were hurling explosives over the border fence and attempting to scale it.

Following the clashes, the Zionist entity carried out air strikes it said were targeting weapons manufacturing and storage sites of the Islamist group Hamas. The Zionist forces struck Gaza again overnight Monday-Tuesday in response to incendiary balloons that sparked multiple fires in southern Eskhol region.

There were no reported casualties from the strikes. New clashes took place on the border between Gaza and Zionist state on Wednesday, but they were less violent than those yesterday. More protests were planned, according to Palestinian sources. The protests come just over three months after an informal truce ended 11 days of conflict between Hamas and the Zionist forces, the worst fighting between the two sides in years.

Hamas authorities said 260 Palestinians were killed by Zionist air strikes during the conflict, including fighters. In 2018, Gazans began a protest movement demanding an end to Zionist blockade and the right for Palestinians to return to lands they fled or were expelled from when the Jewish state was founded. The Hamas-backed weekly demonstrations, often violent, sputtered as the Jewish state killed some 350 Palestinians in Gaza over more than a year. - AFP