GAZA – Israeli troops martyred four Palestinians and wounded hundreds ofothers on Friday with live fire or tear gas used against protesters at theGaza border, medics said, while Israel said militants had attacked itsforces with guns and grenades.

Organisers linked the protests to annual “Jerusalem Day” events in Iran,which like Gaza’s dominant Hamas Islamists preaches Israel’s destructionand was incensed by the US recognition in December of Jerusalem as theIsraeli capital.

“There is no such state called Israel that could have a capital calledJerusalem,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.

He said the Gaza demonstrations, launched on March 30, would continue untilPalestinians achieve their demand for a right of return to ancestral landslost to Israel in the 1948 war of its creation.

The Palestinians martyred on Friday were three adult men and a 15-year-oldboy, medics said. Of 618 people wounded, 120 were from live fire, they said.

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

Hamas seized Gaza from Western-backed Palestinian authorities in 2007 andhas fought three wars with Israel there. Two million Palestinians have sunkinto poverty as Israel and Egypt, citing security needs, clamped down onGaza’s borders.

“We are not asking for the moon,” said Amer Abu Khalaf, a 20-year-oldbusiness administration student who took part in Friday’s protest, sayingit aimed to “break the siege and have the world recognise our right toreturn”.