TRUMP JERUSALEM DECISION FORCES A THIRD INTIFADA
▶ US president sparks clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces as the UAE and international community condemn move as being contrary to legitimate resolutions
Clashes erupted across the West Bank, in East Jerusalem and along the Gaza Strip’s border fence with Israel yesterday as Palestinians seethed over US president Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and stated intention to move the US embassy there.
More than 31 Palestinians were reported wounded by live fire or rubber-coated metal bullets in the clashes with Israeli forces, a mere foretaste of what is expected after evening prayers today. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called for a new intifada uprising to start today.
“Tomorrow should be a day of rage and the start of a major attempt to rise up, which I will name the intifada of the liberation of Jerusalem and the West Bank,” he said yesterday. Just as Palestinian resistance had liberated Gaza from the Israeli army, Palestinians could free Jerusalem, he said.
“We have given instructions to all Hamas members and to all its wings to be fully ready for any new instructions or orders that may be given to confront this strategic danger that threatens Jerusalem and Palestine. United Jerusalem is Arab and Muslim and it is the capital of the state of Palestine, all Palestine,” he said.
The UAE expressed its deep regret and condemnation at the US administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation statement yesterday said that such unilateral decisions were contrary to legitimate international resolutions and will not change the legal status of the holy city as being under occupation.
“[The decision] is a complete defiance of the historic and permanent rights of the Palestinian people in Jerusalem, guaranteed by the relevant international resolutions and recognised by the international community.”
Mr Trump’s decision, which reversed seven decades of US policy, was seen by Palestinians as cementing Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem, which they cherish as the capital of their future state. Jawad Siyam, a grass-roots leader in the Silwan neighbourhood beneath Al Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site, said: “Trump is showing the ugly face of the USA, supporting the occupation and ignoring the rights of the Palestinians and Christians and Muslims in the city.”
Among the focal points of clashes were Tulkarem and Qalqilya in the northern West Bank, Al Bireh in its central sector, and Bethlehem in the south. According to the Gaza ministry of health, seven Palestinians were wounded, one of them seriously, in clashes east of Khan Younis. In Jerusalem, three Palestinians were arrested as security forces broke up a demonstration near Damascus Gate.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, held talks in Amman with Jordan’s King Abdullah to
co-ordinate a response to the American move. The leaders said Mr Trump’s decision was a breach of international law and warned that tampering with the status of Jerusalem would only create more tension and violence.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that other countries had been in touch with Israel about moving their embassies to Jerusalem.
“Trump has tied himself eternally to the history of our capital. His name will be held aloft with those of others who made the history of Jerusalem,” Mr Netanyahu said.
Mr Siyam predicted that the protests would keep intensifying in the days ahead. Asked what he expected for today, he replied: “The Palestinians will go out in peaceful protests but they will turn into clashes because the Israelis won’t allow any protests. Day by day there will be more and more.
“If the political leaders keep up this level of speech it will continue and they won’t be able to control things like during the second intifada. I think this will go out of control.”
He said Mr Trump’s move was devastating. “A hundred years after the Balfour Declaration came the Trump declaration, which is very similar.”
Talal Awkal, a Gaza Citybased columnist for Al Ayyam newspaper, also predicted sustained unrest, recalling how the installation of metal detectors by Israel at entrances to Al Aqsa mosque had fuelled protests in July.
“We have to remember that
when Israel installed the metal detectors there was a kind of intifada. Now we are talking about all of Jerusalem, so what do you expect? The Palestinians can no longer be calm waiting for solutions from the US and Israel.”
Awkal said he expected “a popular intifada in which people go into the streets and resist settlers and the army across the West Bank and on the borders of the Gaza Strip. There will be a lot of clashes but without [Palestinian] armaments.”
The leader of Lebanon’s Iranbacked Hizbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, supported calls for a Palestinian intifada but did not threaten military action by his group over what he called “undisguised American aggression”.
He called for protests on the streets, on social media and at diplomatic levels by Arab and Muslim nations to force Mr Trump to reverse his decision, Associated Press reported.
The US move provoked demonstrations in cities across Pakistan. Associated Press said hundreds of Islamists staged anti-US rallies in the capital, Islamabad, and in Karachi, Peshawar, and Multan, although no violence was reported.
The Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab militant group in Somalia, which has been increasingly targeted by US air strikes, said Mr Trump’s decision was “evidence of an escalation in its aggression against Islam and Muslims”, Associated Press reported.