17 Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli troops
At least 17 Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,400 injured in clashes with Israeli soldiers during protests at the Gaza border, Palestinian representative to the UN Riyad Mansour said.
Israeli officials estimated tens of thousands of Palestinian protesters marched in Gaza on Friday towards the border fence between Israel and Gaza during a protest called the "Great March of Return".
The march quickly turned bloody as Palestinian protesters and Israeli military clashed along the fence, CNN reported on Saturday.
The aim of the protest was to assert what Palestinians regard as their "right to return" to towns and villages from which their families fled, or were driven out, when the state of Israel was created in 1948.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Israeli authorities bore "full responsibility" for the deaths and declared Saturday as a day of mourning. Thousands of people were attending the funerals.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an independent inquiry into the deaths and the UN Security Council condemned the violence after an emergency session. UN deputy political affairs chief Taye-Brook Zerihoun told the Council: "Israel must uphold its responsibilities under international human rights and humanitarian law."
The Palestinian leadership also accused the US of obstructing a UN resolution to denounce the Israeli aggression. "The US provided a cover for Israel to continue its aggression on the Palestinian people and encourage it to defy international legitimacy resolutions that aim at ending the occupation," said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson of the Palestinian President said.
The march coincided with Palestinian Land Day, an annual occasion marking Palestinians' protest against Israel's confiscation of their land. The protest will end on May 15. Russia has ordered 50 more British diplomats to leave the country, escalating a diplomatic crisis after a former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a military grade nerve agent on British soil.
Russia on Saturday blamed Britain for hampering its diplomatic ties with all the countries, as per media sources.
Earlier on Friday, Russia summoned British Ambassador Laurie Bristow to give a one-month deadline to the United Kingdom to withdraw its diplomatic contingent from Moscow to the same size as done with the Russian diplomats in Britain, reports ANI.
It comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin expelled 23 diplomats on
March 18 - taking the total number of British diplomats expelled from the country to
more than 70. This order came days after UK Prime Minister Theresa May expelled the same number of Russian diplomats from Britain. Moreover, Russia expelled 59 diplomats from 23 countries on Friday. Ambassadors from several European and Western nations were summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry to tell them how many of their officials were to leave Moscow.
The move by Moscow was a tit-for-tat response to the similar actions taken by the countries such as the United States. Last week, the UK had suspended 21 Russian diplomats back to Moscow, claiming that Russia was "highly responsible" for the poisoning attack.
According to the British government, Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter were exposed to a military-grade nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury on March 4. The father-daughter duo has since been hospitalised in a critical condition.