Mideast unrest turns deadly
Two Palestinians are killed, hundreds hurt in continued protests against Trump.
JERUSALEM — At least two Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, medical sources said Friday, as angry demonstrators took to the streets in another “day of rage” against President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The Palestinian Health Ministry’s spokesman in Gaza told Palestinian state news agency WAFA that two people had been killed in clashes with Israeli forces.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said earlier that it had treated about 331 wounded in the West Bank and Gaza, 13 of whom had been shot with live bullets. Most suffered injuries from rubber bullets or tear gas, the group said.
The protests came at a time of heightened tension between Israelis and Palestinians in the wake of Trump’s announcement this week, which broke with decades of U.S. foreign policy as well as international law and spurred almost worldwide condemnation.
It pushed leaders of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas to call for another intifada, after two previous such uprisings, the first of which ignited 30 years ago this month.
“The project of transforming Jerusalem into the occupation’s capital will not pass,” Hamas said in a statement this week to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1987 intifada.
Israel, which annexed East Jerusalem during the 1967 war, claims that the city cannot be divided and is its capital. But peace talks have centered on the idea that East Jerusalem, which is dominated by Arabs despite a rising number of Israeli settlements, would be the capital of any future Palestinian state.
The U.S. position has been that Jerusalem’s final status should be determined through negotiations, a position that Trump said was not being abandoned.
Friday’s unrest was less than had been expected, especially in Jerusalem, where Supt. Mickey Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman, said on Twitter that extra police units had been mobilized in the Old City and elsewhere in Jerusalem to “respond to protests if necessary.”
He added that there would be no age restrictions on those entering the Al Aqsa Mosque in the Old City. In the past, Israeli forces had imposed age limits on those entering the mosque — a move that infuriated Palestinians.
About 32,000 people had gathered for Friday prayers in Al Aqsa, according to local media outlet Jerusalem Online.
Despite calls to intensify protests during the “Friday of rage,” the sermon at Al Aqsa, according to worshipers interviewed, did not refer to Trump by name. It was thought to be a calming measure by Jordan’s Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs, which oversees Al Aqsa’s staff.
Jordan has been the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem since 1924. The agreement was renewed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2013.
Sporadic scuffles between Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops did break out, however, at East Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, especially when a number of youths raised a Palestinian flag (earlier posters featuring a vampirelike Trump or depictions of the president being thrown into a trash compactor elicited no response from Israeli authorities).
One reason for the muted response, said Abu Usama Asmar, a 58-year-old Palestinian souvenir shop owner, was that “we cannot do much. We are deprived of power.”
“Had we been able to change the situation, we would have done everything within our reach,” Asmar said. “But this struggle isn’t over yet, and it cannot be decided in this short period.”
Others, such as 54-yearold Maher Mansour, said Friday’s relative calm did not diminish the seriousness of the situation. “In fact, it is extremely dangerous, and is like the lull that lasts before the outbreak of the big storm,” he said.
Trump’s decision brought tens of thousands of demonstrators to the major squares of cities across the region, with many viewing his shift as yet another example of Washington’s pro-Israel bias.
Jordanian TV news outlet Roya News said approximately 20,000 people had streamed into downtown Amman, Jordan’s capital. Video uploaded to social media showed crowds shouting, “Prepare for jihad.” Some burned the Israeli flag, while others carried posters of a swastika imposed on Trump’s visage, reading “Trump = the Ugly Face of Nazism.”
In Tehran’s Grand Mosque, firebrand preacher Ahmad Khatami said, “Trump has shown that the only solution for the Palestinian cause is the intifada,” adding that the U.S. president suffered from “mental and psychological disorders.”
Protests were also held in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, where a large number of Palestinian refugees continue to live in separate enclaves.
“This foolish decision is a war crime. It strikes at the heart of Palestinian rights and the symbolism of the independent state,” said Ali Faisal, a leader with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, at a rally held near Beirut’s Sabra refugee camp.