Tel Aviv - Calm returned to Israel's borders with Lebanon and Syria on Monday, a day after Palestinian refugees breached the borders during mass protests on the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba.
Between 13 to 22 people were killed, according to conflicting counts, and about 360 injured when Israel troops along the borders with Lebanon, Syria and the northern Gaza Strip opened fire on the protesters, trying to prevent them from breaching the lines.
A military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv said the borders had been 'quiet during the night.'
Israeli police were still conducting house-to-house searches in the Druze village of Madj al-Shams on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, near the heavily secured border with Syria.
In an unprecedented act of defiance, large numbers of Palestinians living in Syria forced their way across the border and staged a protest in the village.
The protest came on the anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe), the dispersal of hundreds of thousands from their villages in what is now Israel during the Arab-Israeli war that erupted a day after Israel declared statehood on May 14, 1948.
Israeli soldiers stationed along the border open fire on the protesters.
There were still conflicting reports about the death toll, ranging from at least two to up to 10.
According to the official Syrian SANA news agency, 170 people were also wounded, at least 20 of whom sustained gunshot injuries.
At a second flash-point in southern Lebanon, Lebanese armed forces tried to prevent the demonstrators from crossing the border fence. Israeli troops opened fire too, killing some 10 people and injuring about 112. One of the critically injured was also reported to have died of his injuries Monday morning.
Thousands of Palestinians also marched in the Gaza Strip, with a group trying to break through to the Israeli-controlled Erez border crossing, north of Gaza City.
Israeli troops fired three shells and opened fire, killing one and injuring some 82, at least 10 of whom were in serious condition, Gaza emergency services chief Adham Abu Salmeya said.
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