Planned Gaza protest fizzles out

Only a few thousand Palestinians braved a rainy day to demonstrate against Israel's blockade of their territory today, a far smaller turnout than expected.

Israeli soldiers and police on alert for a possible border breakout were left with little to do.

There were rumours that thousands of Gazans, angered by half a year of Israeli restrictions, would try to storm the Israeli border, a reprise of last month's flooding into Egypt after Hamas knocked down the Gaza-Egypt border. Hamas police stopped the only attempt to march on an Israeli crossing, however.

Instead, Gaza militants fired 11 rockets at southern Israel, the military said, and one seriously wounded a 10-year-old boy in the town of Sderot, just outside Gaza.

Earlier this month, an eight-year-old boy in Sderot lost a leg in a rocket attack.

The organisers of today's Gaza protest said it was meant to draw attention to the Israeli blockade, which has created chronic shortages of vital supplies and drawn international criticism because of the widespread hardship in Gaza.

Israel imposed the blockade after Hamas seized control of Gaza last June, and it has recently tightened sanctions in response to heavy rocket fire by Gaza militants. Israel has said one of its goals is to reduce its ties with Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Outside the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, about 5,000 people, many of them children and university students, formed a human chain during intermittent rain showers. The crowd hoisted banners in English and Arabic saying: "End the siege of Gaza now", and "Your siege will not break our will."

Turnout clearly fell short of the tens of thousands of people organisers hoped to mobilise in a human chain running the length of the 25-mile territory.