Gaza City, January 12 (RHC)-- Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian woman and injured at least 25 people during protests along the border between the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied territories.

Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, said Aml Moustafa Ahmed, 43, was killed by Israeli fire during protests east of the Gaza Strip on Friday.

He added that the Israeli forces also shot and wounded at least 25 other people during the clashes.  Two journalists and a paramedic were also injured after they were hit by tear gas bombs.

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.

More than 240 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.

Separately, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the occupied West Bank announced that Israeli forces seriously injured a Palestinian man in the city of Hebron on Friday.  The Israeli military had claimed that the man was trying to stab Israeli soldiers near Kiryat Arba settlement.

About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.