SCORES DEAD IN GAZA PROTESTS
Violence renewed after embassy opens
Demonstrations are expected today in Gaza — and one in Boston — after at least 58 Palestinians died and more than 2,000-plus were injured yesterday in a renewal of Mideast violence, sparked this time by the U.S. opening an embassy in Jerusalem.
The clashes cast a pall over celebrations in the Holy City, where the embassy inauguration was held.
“Big day for Israel. Congratulations!” President Trump tweeted.
Fifty miles to the south, an estimated 35,000 Palestinians hit the streets in what was called the deadliest day of cross-border violence since a devastating 2014 war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
The death toll was at least 58 with thousands more injured. Protesters hurled firebombs and stones at Israeli troops who returned fire.
The Palestinian Community of Boston, Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace Boston are expected to hold a demonstration this afternoon at 5 on Boston Common.
The unrest took place as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and fellow White House adviser and wife, Ivanka Trump, at the opening ceremony for the embassy. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was also a key figure at the event.
Professor Malik Mufti, head of the political science department at Tufts University, said the protests give “ammo” to all who hate the U.S. in the Mideast.
“This strengthens the hand of all those hostile to the U.S.,” he told the Herald. “Iran will certainly benefit and Syria.”
As for the bloody protests, he said it’s “not clear where the region is hurtling.”
Anthony Cordesman, a noted Mideast analyst, said moving the embassy to Jerusalem could be interpreted by those in the region that the U.S. is “abandoning a twostate solution and peace treaty” in the region.
“Gaza is a difficult situation ... with major problems,” he said, adding unemployment tops the list and it’s all boiling over on the border where the two sides “don’t trust each other.”
The result he added, is a region “trapped in a process of escalation.”
“Nothing in this area is predictable,” Cordesman said. “But it is all interconnected.”
At the Jerusalem ceremony, Kushner sought to place blame for the day’s violence — and unrest preceding the embassy inauguration — on Palestinian protesters.
“Those provoking violence are part of the problem, and not part of the solution,” he said.
The embassy’s formal but temporary move from a sprawling fortified bunker in Tel Aviv to an existing consulate facility in Jerusalem is in many ways symbolic. No decision has been made on a permanent location for the main American diplomatic mission.
The protests in Gaza, ruled by the militant group Hamas, were intended to mark the climax of a weekslong bid to protest the 70th anniversary of Israel’s creation and the mass Palestinian displacement that accompanied it.
Palestinians had been protesting at the Gaza border since March 30, demanding the right to reclaim ancestral homes in Israel. Netanyahu’s government, and preceding Israeli administrations, have deemed the “right of return” a nonstarter.
Palestinian health officials said nearly half of the more than 2,200 injuries were caused by live ammunition, a higher toll than on previous days. Others were hit by rubber bullets and shrapnel or were overwhelmed by tear gas.
The international community, which has repeatedly expressed worries over the protests, called for restraint by both sides. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned” by the day’s violence.
Human rights groups for weeks have denounced Israeli use of lethal force against the demonstrators, and did so again yesterday, but in stronger terms.
In Gaza, by midmorning, thousands of people were streaming toward five protest camps set up along Gaza’s eastern border with Israel. Some were wrapped in the Palestinian flag; others carried knives and wire cutters to break through the security barriers erected by Israeli forces.