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First Christian Martyr Buried In Gaza Strip
GAZA City, April 12 (News Agencies) - Hundreds of mourners turned out Thursday for the funeral of the Gaza Strip's first Christian "martyr" since the start of the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, in late September.
Elias Ayid, 50, was buried in a plot at a small Catholic cemetery in Gaza City.
Ayid, a police major, had been killed by a shell splinter Tuesday night when Israeli tanks raided the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip in the first major Israeli military incursion on to Palestinian controlled lands since the conflict erupted six months ago.
At the Church of the Holy Family, where both a Palestinian and a Vatican flag hung from a concrete cross above the sanctuary, priest Manuel Musalam urged Pope Jean-Paul II "to raise his voice in favor of the freedom of the Palestinians."
Musalam also denounced "Christian countries who supply arms to Israel."
The funeral procession stopped at the headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement where the coffin sat on display for 30 minutes in a farewell ceremony.
Tayeb Abdel Rahim, the secretary-general of Arafat's Palestinian Authority, told the mourners at the church that "Muslims and Christians will defend together the Holy Sepulcher and the al-Aqsa Mosque," the holiest Christian and Muslim sites respectively in Jerusalem.
Less than three percent of the residents of Israel and the occupied territories are Christian, half of whom belong to the Greek Orthodox community while the other half are Catholic.
An estimated 3,500 Christians live in the Gaza Strip, the vast majority of them Greek Orthodox.
Around 3,000 Palestinians shouted for vengeance at the Khan Yunis camp where residents participated in the funeral of Hafez Rushdi Khalil, 35, who was killed by a live Israeli bullet Thursday morning as he drove his taxi past an Israeli military position, medical sources said. Another civilian was also shot in the foot.
A 15-year-old Palestinian boy, who died Wednesday five days after being shot during clashes, was also buried in Gaza City.
Since the start of the spiraling conflict, 476 people have died: 391 Palestinians, 71 Israelis, 13 Arab Israelis and one German.
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