SI | STOP-Imperialism.com

Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian man during protests near the border between the besieged Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied territories, the health ministry says.

Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, said Karam Fayyad, 26, was killed by Israeli fire east of the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday.

He added that eight other Palestinians, including a medic and a journalist, were injured during the protests.

A senior official of the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, says Palestinians will continue the Great March of Return rallies until the end of the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip.

Tensions have been running high near the fence separating Gaza from the occupied territories since March 30, which marked the start of the protests.

Palestinian protesters demand the right to return for those driven out of their homeland.

The clashes in Gaza reached their peak on May 14, the eve of the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day, or the Day of Catastrophe, which coincided this year with Washington's relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem al-Quds.

More than 220 Palestinians have so far been killed and over 20,000 others wounded in the renewed Gaza clashes, according to the latest figures released by the Gaza Health Ministry.

Gaza has been under Israeli siege since June 2007, causing a decline in living standards as well as unprecedented unemployment and poverty.