A wounded protester is carried away from the Syrian-Israeli border
A wounded protester is carried away from the Syrian-Israeli border near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights June 5, 2011. Israeli troops opened fire on Sunday at Palestinian protesters in Syria who rushed towards a border fence and Syrian state television said six demonstrators were killed. Sunday marked the 44th anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war and Israel had been on alert for a repetition of last month's storming by thousands of Palestinian protesters of Israel's frontiers with Syria and Lebanon. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the war and annexed the territory in 1981, a move not recognised internationally. REUTERS

Israel has accused Syria's Assad regime of provoking the violence at their shared border yesterday.

Syria reported that 23 pro-Palestinian and Syrian protestors approaching the fence marking the ceasefire line between Syria and Israel were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. Some 350 were wounded.

Israeli authorities called the protest a deliberate state-backed provocation on the part of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, designed to distract Syrians from the revolution raging on the streets of Damascus.

The Sunday protests commemorated the Naksa, or the loss of territory to Israeli armed forced during the 1967 Six Day War.

Palestinian refugee advocacy groups called off a similar protest when the Lebanese government deemed the protest a security risk and declared their border with Israel a closed military zone last Thursday.

Earlier this year, at a May 15 protest commemorating the Nakba, the 1948 creation of the state of Israel, Lebanese and Syrians also attempted to push through their borders with Israel.

Ten Lebanese protestors and four Syrians were shot and killed by Israeli Defense Forces.

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