Gaza protesters warned to stay away from border fence
GAZA CITY (Gaza Strip):
Israel’s military warned Gaza residents that it would stop any breach of its border fence and that those approaching it in a planned mass protest would be putting their lives in danger.
Leaflets dropped over Gaza by army jets warned that those approaching the border “jeopardise” their lives.
The warning said the army is “prepared to face all scenarios and will act against every attempt to damage the security fence or harm IDF soldiers or Israeli civilians.” They ignored the warning. Israeli troops killed at least 16 Palestinians along the Gaza border yesterday health officials said, as demonstrators streamed to the frontier on the day the United States prepared to open its embassy in Jerusalem.
Protests intensified on the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding, with loudspeakers on Gaza mosques urging Palestinians to join a “Great March of Return”.
Black smoke from tyres burned by demonstrators rose into the air at the border.
“Today is the big day when we will cross the fence and tell Israel and the world we will not accept being occupied forever,” said Gaza science teacher Ali, who declined to give his last name.
“Many may get martyred today, so many, but the world will hear our message. Occupation must end,” he said.
Israeli troops killed 16 Palestinians yesterday, including a 14-year-old boy and a man in a wheelchair, and some 500 protesters were injured, at
least 200 by live bullets, health officials said. The man in the wheelchair had been pictured on social media using a slingshot.
The latest casualties raised the Palestinian death toll to 61 since the protests began on March 30. No Israeli casualties have been reported.
The killings have drawn international criticism, but the United States, which has angered the Palestinians and Arab powers by relocating its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, has echoed Israel in
accusing Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement of instigating violence, an allegation it denies.
The march was also directed at the inauguration of the US Embassy in Jerusalem yesterday.
The relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv, a key campaign promise of President Donald Trump, has infuriated the Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as a future capital.
“A great day for Israel,” Trump tweeted early yesterday.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cut ties with the Trump administration and declared it unfit to remain in its role as the sole mediator in peace talks.
Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas aide, blasted the Trump administration, saying Trump had violated a promise to hold off on moving the embassy to give peace talks a chance and that his administration is “based on lies.”
Erekat said the Trump administration has “become part of the problem, not part of the solution.” —