Quote:Israeli troops fire on Golan Heights protesters

Syrian state television reports at least 14 dead after attempted border breach by pro-Palestinians

Associated Press guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 June 2011 17.40 BST

Israeli troops opened fire on Sunday at a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters who tried to break into the Israel-controlled Golan Heights from neighbouring Syria, killing at least 14 people and wounding scores of others.

The casualty figures came from Syrian state television and were confirmed by the head of a hospital treating the victims. The Israeli military said it was not tracking casualties on either side. Israel accused the Syrian regime of orchestrating the violence the second border clash in less than a month to deflect attention from its bloody crackdown on the uprising against its president Bashar al-Assad. Syrian television said the melee was spontaneous and reflected built-up anger among Palestinians. The protests marked 44 years since the 1967 Middle East war erupted.

Israel had mobilised thousands of troops to prevent a repeat of last month's disturbance when hundreds of people broke through a border fence, entered the Golan Heights and clashed with Israeli forces.

"Unfortunately, extremist forces around us are trying today to breach our borders and threaten our communities and our citizens. We will not let them do that," the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu told his cabinet. He said security forces had been ordered to show "maximum restraint".

Despite Israel's warnings, hundreds of demonstrators a mix of Palestinians and their Syrian supporters passed Syrian and UN posts and marched to the barbed-wire-lined trench the Israeli military dug along the border after last month's unrest. Protesters waved Palestinian flags and threw rocks and debris over the fence.

As the crowd reached the border, soldiers shouted warnings through megaphones. "Anybody who gets close to the fence is endangering his life," they said.

When the demonstrators pushed forward, troops opened fire, sending crowds running in panic. Several wounded people were taken away by demonstrators, but dozens more continued heading toward the trench. Those evacuating casualties shouted "shahid" (martyr).

Protesters, most of them young men, eventually managed to cut through coils of barbed wire marking the frontier, entering a buffer zone and crawling toward a second fence guarded by Israeli troops.

Dr Ali Kanaan, director of the Quneitra hospital, confirmed the television report of 14 dead 12 Palestinians and two Syrians. He said 225 were wounded. The youngest victim was a 15-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Issa, who lived in the Neira refugee camp in Aleppo.

Several protesters said they saw a landmine explode near two Israeli soldiers as they were chasing away the crowds at the border.

"We were trying to cut the barbed wire when the Israeli soldiers began shooting directly at us," Ghayath Awad, a 29-year-old Palestinian who was shot in the waist, told the AP at the hospital.

Mohammed Hasan, a 16-year old student, was wounded in both feet. "We want on this occasion to remind America and the whole world that we have a right to return to our country," he said.

The recent protests are designed to draw attention to the plight of Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from their homes during Israel's war of independence in 1948. The original refugees, and their descendants, now number several million and they demand the right to return to the families' former properties.

Israel says such a move would spell the end of the country as a Jewish state.

About half a million Palestinian refugees live across 13 camps in Syria, a country with a population of 23 million. Palestinians are allowed to work and study, but they do not have citizenship and cannot vote.

The Israeli military put the blame on the Syrian regime, which has killed more than 1,200 citizens during three months of demonstrations against Assad. The Syrian military, which tightly controls access to the border, did not keep the protesters from reaching the fence.

"This is an attempt to divert international attention from the bloodbath going on in Syria," said Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman. "We are guarding our border. I wish they had obeyed our verbal warnings, but they chose instead to clash with the soldiers."

There was relative calm on Israel's other borders on Sunday.