Israel defends response to Gaza protests; 61 dead
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Deadly new clashes erupted in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday as thousands of Palestinians staged angry funeral processions for dozens of demonstrators killed a day earlier by Israeli troops. Israel, meanwhile, weathered growing international criticism over the violence.
The latest confrontations came as Palestinians commemorated their mass displacement 70 years ago following the creation of Israel. At least two more fatalities near Gaza’s frontier with Israel were reported Tuesday by Palestinian officials, pushing the death toll for Monday and Tuesday to 61. Israel’s military said scattered clashes also broke out in the West Bank.
Monday’s outbreak of lethal violence in Gaza coincided with Israel rejoicing over the Trump administration’s symbolic inauguration of a new U.S. Embassy in the contested city of Jerusalem. The embassy festivities added fuel to the seven-week-old Gaza demonstrations denouncing a more than decade-long blockade of the crowded enclave and demanding a Palestinian return to ancestral homes in Israel.
Israel insisted anew that it used live fire in response to a deadly threat posed by Palestinians seeking to breach the border fence between Israel and Gaza. It said at least 24 of those killed Monday were militants.
At the United Nations on Tuesday, Trump’s ambassador to the world body, Nikki Haley, staunchly defended Israel, telling the Security Council that no member “would act with more restraint than Israel has” in the ongoing Gaza border confrontation.
In the West Bank on Tuesday, the Israeli military said 1,300 Palestinians participated in what it described as “violent riots” at 18 locations and said protesters burned tires and hurled rocks and firebombs at security forces. The military said in the wake of Monday’s border confrontation, its aircraft hit more than a dozen sites in Gaza that it described as “terror targets.”
As is traditional on May 15, Palestinians on Tuesday observed what they call the “nakba,” or the “catastrophe,” of 70 years ago, when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced from their homes in what is now Israel.
In Ramallah, sirens wailed for a minute and 10 seconds — a second for each year — to commemorate the anniversary.
Many Palestinian motorists clambered from their pulled-over cars to stand at attention. Shops and businesses in Ramallah were closed for a general strike.
The Trump administration and Israel have placed the blame for Monday’s violence squarely on Hamas, the militant group that controls the seaside enclave.
Israel has cited firebombs thrown by protesters and flaming kites being flown across the frontier as justifying lethal force. The military said at least 400 protesters gathered Tuesday on the Gaza side of the border fence and said several Palestinians were apprehended as they tried to breach a fence in the north of Gaza.
In Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp, men used automatic weapons to fire at an Israeli drone hovering overhead. Hundreds of men huddled behind a sand berm before pushing into an open field to fling rocks and other projectiles toward Israeli forces, some using a doorless refrigerator as a shield.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported two Palestinian deaths from Israeli fire at a protest site east of the camp.
Farther south, Israeli drones unleashed tear gas to drive back protesters from the security barriers.
In a message released Tuesday, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh denounced the “massacre” in Gaza and vowed to expand the confrontation.