GAZA, April 23 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian teenager died Monday of his wounds sustained on March 30, the first day of a six-week anti-Israel mass rally, the health ministry in Gaza said.

Tahrir Wahba, 18, died of his wounds in the European Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday morning, said Ashraf al-Qedra, the health ministry spokesman in Gaza.

Wahba, who was said to be deaf, was critically wounded on March 30, when shot in the head by Israeli gunfire, he added.

Since the beginning of the rally, 41 Palestinians have been killed, and 5,000 others injured with 138 in critical condition, according to al-Qedra.

The mass Palestinian protest, known as the "Great March of Return," is expected to peak on May 15, the day after the 70th anniversary of Israel's declaration of independence but marked by the Palestinians as the Nakba Day, or "Day of the Catastrophe."