Thousands of Palestinians and Syrians participated Monday in the funeral procession of three Palestinians killed during clashes between Israeli troops and Arab protesters on the Golan Heights.


Thousands of Palestinians attend the funeral procession for the Palestinians who were killed during clashes between Israeli troops and Arab protesters, at the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, Syria, on May 16, 2011. (Xinhua/Bassim)
The funeral procession began from al-Wassim Mosque in the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus, with mourners carrying the coffins on shoulders from the mosque to the Martyrs Cemetery.


The coffins were wrapped in the Palestinian flags and passed through the Yarmouk camp streets to the cemetery.

Mourners carried banners and shouted ''God is great'' and "the people want to liberate Palestine."


People on balconies showered mourners with rice in a show of grief while mourners were waving Palestinian flags.


Israeli troops opened fire Sunday on Palestinian protesters at Ein-el Tinah village on the Syrian side of the Syrian-Israeli borders, killing four and injuring hundreds. Protestors marked the Nakba Day, or the Catastrophe, an annual commemoration for the Palestinian people's displacement that accompanied the creation of the Israeli state in 1948.


Hundreds of protesters smashed the fence along Israel's borders with Syria and hundreds burst through, throwing soldiers with stones. Israeli soldiers guarding the border opened fire to force them to retreat.


Syria's Arab News Agency SANA confirmed that more than 200 people were wounded and four were killed.


One of the four dead was buried earlier in Khan al-Sheeh refugees camp, some 30 km south of the capital Damascus. Maher al-Taher, an official of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine abroad, said ''Our people yesterday sent a message to the world that they will not accept a substitute for the right of return to Palestine.''


Dr. Ali Kanaan, head of Mamdouh Abaza Hospital in the Quneitra province in southern Syria where most of the wounded demonstrators have been transferred for medical treatment, was quoted Monday by SANA as saying that the wounded are in a "good" condition, adding that only five men have been seriously wounded. He said the hospital received more than 150 injured, including 55 demonstrators suffering from suffocation after inhaling tear gas released by Israeli troops. Sunday's unrest, which signals a rare incursion from the usually tightly controlled Syrian side, came after activists used Facebook and other websites to mobilize Palestinians and their supporters in neighboring countries to march on the borders with Israel.


VietNamNet/Xinhuanet