Israel fires on border protest
1N a jarring contrast, Israeli forces shot and killed at least 55 Palestinians and wounded more than 1200 during mass protests Monday along the Gaza border, while just a few miles away Israel and the US held a festive inauguration ceremony for the new American Embassy in contested Jerusalem.
It was by far the deadliest day of cross- border violence since a devastating 2014 war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, and further dimmed the already bleak prospects for President Donald Trump’s hoped- for peace plan.
Throughout the day, Gaza protesters set tyres ablaze, sending thick black smoke into the air, and hurled firebombs and stones toward Israeli troops across the border.
The Israeli military, which has been criticised for using excessive force against unarmed protesters, said Hamas tried to carry out bombing and shooting attacks under the cover of the protests and released video of protesters ripping away parts of the barbed- wire border fence.
Monday’s protests followed more than a month of weekly demonstrations aimed at breaking a crippling Israeli- Egyptian border blockade. But the US Embassy move, bitterly opposed by the Palestinians, added further fuel.
There was barely any mention of the Gaza violence at Monday’s lavish inauguration ceremony for the new embassy, an upgraded consular building just 80km away.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu joined a US delegation of Trump administration officials and Republican and evangelical Christian supporters.
Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son- in- law and chief Middle East adviser, headlined the US delegation with his wife and fellow adviser, Ivanka Trump.
Mr Trump said the embassy move, a key campaign promise, recognised the “plain reality” that Jerusalem was Israel’s capital.
Yet he added the US “remains fully committed to facilitating a lasting peace agreement”.
But Monday’s steadily climbing death toll and wallto- wall condemnation of the embassy move in the Arab world raised new doubts about Mr Trump’s ambitions to broker what he called the “deal of the century”.