Israel kicks off US embassy celebrations with party attended by Ivanka Trump
US diplomats arrive in Israel
Israel has kicked off festivities to celebrate the opening of the new United States embassy in Jerusalem, even as it bolstered its forces along the Gaza border and in the West Bank in anticipation of mass Palestinian protests of the move. Ahead of the embassy’s formal opening at 11pm (AEST), Israel hosted a gala party at its Foreign Ministry with United States President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner and other American VIPs. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Mr Trump’s “bold decision” in upending decades of US policy by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
“It’s the right thing to do,” a smiling Mr Netanyahu told the jubilant crowd.
Mr Trump announced his decision on Jerusalem in December, triggering a joyous reaction from Mr Netanyahu’s nationalist government.
The move infuriated the Palestinians, who claim Israeliannexed east Jerusalem as their capital.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas halted ties with the Trump administration and declared it unfit to remain in its role as the sole mediator in peace talks.
Mass protests planned in Gaza
The rival Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, has been staging a series of weekly demonstrations against a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the territory.
Those protests are to climax today, with tens of thousands of people expected to gather along the Israeli border in an event timed to coincide with the US embassy move.
Hamas has signalled that large crowds, numbering perhaps in the thousands, might try to break through the border fence to realise the “right of return” to lost homes.
Both the embassy move and the protests have symbolic timing. Mr Trump has said the opening is meant to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Israel’s establishment.
The Palestinian protests also mark the date as the anniversary of their “naqba,” or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of people fled or were forced from their homes during the war surrounding the event.
About two-thirds of Gaza’s 2 million people are descendants of Palestinian refugees.
A mass border breach could trigger potentially lethal Israeli force.