Israeli troops shot dead three Palestinians and wounded at least 618 others on Friday with live fire or tear gas used against protesters at the Gaza Strip border, medics said.

Around 10,000 Palestinians took part in the Right of Return protests in Gaza on Friday.

Israeli occupation forces have killed at least 122 Palestinians in protests along the border since a campaign was launched on March 30 to demand the right to return to ancestral lands lost to Israel in the 1948 war of its creation, hospital officials say.

Israel says the dead included gunmen who used civilians as cover for gun and grenade attacks or infiltration attempts.

There have been no Israeli casualties from the more than two months of Israeli clamp down on Palestinian demonstrations.

The Palestinians killed on Friday were two adult men and a 15-year-old boy, medics said. Of the wounded, 120 were from live fire, they said.

Among those wounded with gunfire was an Agence France-Presse photographer and a 23-year-old man who was on life support after a tear gas canister penetrated his face, medics said.

"We are not asking for the moon," said Amer Abu Khalaf, a 20-year-old business administration student who took part in the protest, saying it aimed to "break the siege and have the world recognise our right to return".

Israel has long refused to admit Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war or their millions of descendants, saying they should stay in a future Palestinian state. Statehood talks have been frozen since 2014.

Two million Palestinians in Gaza have sunk into poverty as Israel continues its 10-year-old siege of the strip.

The death toll from Israel's measures against the Gaza protests have drawn international censure, though the United States has placed the blame on Hamas.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.



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