Embassy protests turn deadly on Gaza Strip I
sraeli forces killed 58 Palestinians on the boundary fence with Gaza on Monday, local health officials said, a level of bloodshed not seen since the most violent days of Israel’s 2014 war in the territory. The death toll more than doubled the number of Palestinians killed during six weeks of demonstrations, dubbed the “March of Return,” and came on the same day that a new U.S. embassy opened in Jerusalem.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians had gathered on the edges of the fenced off blockaded territory from mid-morning. Many came to peacefully demonstrate, bringing their children, carrying flags. Food stalls sold snacks and music blared.
But the protests appeared to have a more violent edge than in previous weeks. Some young
men brought knives and fence cutters. At a gathering point east of Gaza City, organizers urged protestors over loudspeakers to burst through the fence, telling them Israeli soldiers were fleeing their positions, even as they were reinforcing them.
Israeli snipers were determined not to allow a breach, and ambulances soon began screaming back and forth from the fence, as gunshots rang out over the crowd. No Israeli soldiers were injured, though, and Israel drew widespread condemnation for an excessive use of force.
More than 2,700 people were injured, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, including 1,359 from live ammunition. The dead included six children under the age of 18, among them a 15-year-old girl, and a medic, the ministry said.
The United Nations said that “those responsible for outrageous human rights violations must be held to account,” and Human Rights Watch described the killings as a “bloodbath.” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned a continuing “massacre” of the Palestinian people. Both Turkey and South Africa announced they were recalling their ambassadors from Israel.
The Trump administration, however, blamed Hamas for the loss of life. “The responsibility for these tragic deaths rests squarely with Hamas,” deputy White House press secretary Raj Shah told reporters at a briefing. “Israel has the right to defend itself.”
The violence was jarring con- trast with the opening ceremony for the embassy in Jerusalem, which drew first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner.
In Gaza, Hamas has given its backing to the demonstrations, which have galvanized people around a call to protest the loss of Palestinian homes and villages when Israel was formed in 1948.
Palestinians mark that day known as the “nakba” or “catastrophe” - on Tuesday, when more demonstrations are planned. More than two-thirds of Gaza’s population is descended from refugees who were displaced at the time of Israel’s creation.
At Gaza City’s main al-Shifaa hospital, medics said they were overwhelmed.
“I don’t know how we will manage,” said Ayman al-Sahbani, the head of the emergency department, as families jostled to get in to see injured relatives. “How long can this go on? How long?”
The hospital had set up a new additional 30-bed triage area outside, and earlier in the day said it had the capacity to treat 200 or 300 serious gunshot wounds. It had received around 400 injured by around 6.pm., and most of those had been shot, he said.
“We’ve reached the critical point now,” he said. “A lot of people need operations soon, but the operation room is full.”
Increasing economic hardship has fuelled frustrations in Gaza, along with wider despair across Palestinian territories amid moves by a U.S. administration seen as wholeheartedly on Israel’s side of the decades-old conflict. At least 110 Gazans have been killed over the past six weeks, according to health ministry figures. At the demonstrations east of Gaza, some said the force used by Israel would only bring further unrest.
Standing a few hundred meters from the fence, Nirma Attalah, 29, said her 22-year-old brother had been killed two weeks ago. “My brother was shot in the head in this place,” she said. She had come on Monday with her whole extended family. “We are here for Jerusalem, for Palestinian land,” she said.
A truck rolled past carrying young men chanting: “Death rather than humiliation.”