Gaza City: Palestinians burned tires and Israeli troops fired heavy volleys of tear gas on Friday to push back large Gaza crowds from the area of the fence separating the blockaded territory from Israel.
It was the latest in a series of protests against the decade-long blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt. Friday's march also coincided with the annual "Jerusalem Day," instituted by Iran to protest against Israeli rule of the holy city.
Israel and Iran have been arch enemies since Tehran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In the capitals of Iran and Iraq, thousands of Shiite Muslims marched in Jerusalem Day protests, some chanting "Death to Israel" or burning Israeli flags and effigies of President Donald Trump.
Today's Gaza protest was accompanied by concerns about renewed bloodshed. At least 115 Palestinian protesters, the vast majority unarmed, have been killed and close to 3,800 have been wounded by Israeli army fire since the marches began in late March.
After Muslim noon prayers today, thousands of Gaza residents began streaming toward five protest tent camps that had been erected more than two months ago, each several hundred meters (yards) from Gaza's perimeter fence.
From there, smaller groups walked closer to the fence.
In a camp east of Gaza City, activists burned tires, releasing thick black smoke into the air. Israeli troops fired heavy tear gas volleys, including from drones, sending protesters running for cover.
One man with a bullhorn shouted, "America is the biggest evil." The mass protests have been aimed at a border blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt in 2007, after the Islamic militant group Hamas overran the territory. The marchers have also pressed demands for a "right of return" for the descendants of Palestinian refugees to ancestral homes in what is now Israel. More than 700,000
Palestinians were expelled or fled in the 1948 Mideast war over Israel's creation. Two-thirds of Gaza's 2 million residents are descendants of refugees.