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Palestinian protesters evacuate an injured youth amid clashes with Israeli security forces.
Israeli aircraft struck Hamas sites in Gaza late on Saturday, the military said, in an escalation of hostilities after earlier cross-border gunfire
seriously injured an Israeli soldier and wounded 41 Palestinians, including two critically.
The injuries came during a
Gaza protest organised by the enclave's Islamist rulers, Hamas, and other factions in support of Jerusalem, where Palestinian clashes with Israeli police helped spark an 11-day Israel-Hamas conflict in May.
Hundreds of Palestinians gathered near the strip's heavily fortified border, where some tried to scale the border fence and others threw explosives towards Israeli troops. Israeli military said in a statement:
"IDF (Israeli military) troops responded with riot dispersal means, including when necessary live fire."
Among the two Palestinians critically injured was
a 13-year-old boy who was shot in the head, Gaza's health ministry said. It described most of the other injuries as moderate, including
gunshots to limbs, backs and abdomens.
Cross-border fire from Gaza seriously wounded an Israeli border police soldier, who is in hospital receiving medical treatment, the military said. There was no claim of responsibility for the Gaza gunfire.
In response to the soldier's shooting, Israeli "fighter jets have struck four weapons storage and manufacturing sites belonging to Hamas", the military said.
Comment: There has never been adequate justification for the draconian measures perpetrated globally in the guise of COVID. It is not surprising that these results have surfaced - especially in those states where logic and pragmatism have overruled narrative and agenda. If recent history serves, the 'modellers' will double down rather than adjust assumptions. Truth is not their objective and neither is proof.