Trump lights fuse
GAZA CITY Israeli forces fired live ammunition at Palestinian protesters who burned tyres and threw stones near the border fence with Gaza yesterday, and Israeli jets responded to rocket fire with an air strike, in a sharp escalation of violence over United States President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Two Palestinians were reported killed and hundreds injured. One rocket hit the southern Israeli city of Sderot, but no casualties were reported.
The unrest came amid demonstrations across the Middle East and in the West Bank and Jerusalem. The biggest turnout appeared to be in the Gaza Strip, where thousands gathered for street protests following midday sermons focused on the US’s decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem.
The Israeli military said it ‘‘fired selectively’’ toward ‘‘instigators’’ of what it described as violent riots at six places along the Gaza border, which it said drew 4500 participants. The Gaza Health Ministry said two men were killed.
Fifteen people were injured, including a child, in an air strike that followed rocket fire from the enclave, the ministry said.
The Israeli military said its jets had targeted a Hamas training compound and ammunition warehouse. It said one rocket from Gaza was intercepted by the Iron Dome air defence system, and it was trying to identify where another landed.
Rioting broke out in some 30 locations in the Palestinian territories, according to the military, which said 3000 Palestinians participated in the West Bank. As night fell, the demonstrations had mostly dispersed.
A jihadist group called the Nasser Salahuddin Brigades claimed responsibility for the rocket fire. After the air strike, a third rocket was fired, hitting Sderot, the Israeli military confirmed.
The Islamist movement Hamas, which controls Gaza, has called on its followers to mount a third intifada, or uprising, against Israel.
Speaking in Paris, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump’s decision did not indicate any ‘‘final status’’ for Jerusalem, something that would be left for Israelis and Palestinians to decide. Moving the embassy, meanwhile, ‘‘is not something that is going to happen this year’’, he said. ‘‘Probably not next year.’’
Israeli politicians have widely welcomed the move, but international criticism has mounted, on the grounds that the new policy harms peace efforts.
For the Palestinians, the real fight may come on the diplomatic front, with officials saying they will make a new push for independence and recognition.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Washington had lost its credibility as a broker between Israel and the Palestinians. ‘‘With this position, the United States has become no longer qualified to sponsor the peace process.’’
In Jerusalem, the demonstrations were limited in scope and dissipated quickly, and some Palestinian residents expressed resignation, along with contempt, about the US move.
Thousands of worshippers prayed at the holy Haram alSharif compound, home of the renowned al-Aqsa Mosque, but prayers ended without major incident. Some scuffles broke out between demonstrators and border police near the Austrian Hospice in Jerusalem’s Old City, where demonstrators chanted slogans and threw chairs and stones.
Jerusalem resident Ahmed Aduelhawa, 60, said Trump’s declaration did not matter. ‘‘The future of Jerusalem isn’t in Trump’s hands, not in Abbas’s hands, not in [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s hands,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s in God’s hands.’’
In the wider region, battered by bloody conflicts from Iraq to Syria and Yemen, the protests lacked intensity, even in countries that have long been vocally critical of Israel.
Turkey’s president predicted that the region would ignite in a ‘‘ring of fire’’, but the reality in some places fell short of the rhetoric.
In Cairo, protesters rallied outside al-Azhar mosque, where crowds chanted, ‘‘With blood and soul, we sacrifice for you, alQuds!’’ using the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
Religious parties, lawyers and trade groups staged protests across Pakistan, burning American flags and effigies of Trump and chanting ‘‘Death to America’’ and ‘‘Death to Israel’’.
But in Lebanon, Hasan Nasrallah, leader of the militant Shi’ite Hezbollah organisation, offered little in the way of concrete support for the Palestinians during an hour-long speech. Some in the Hezbollah-dominated Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh said the speech gave voice to a deeper frus- AP tration – one that explained why there had not been more protests.
‘‘Why should we fight for them when they have fought us in Syria?’’ asked 38-year-old Mohamed Ibrahim, an accountant. Palestinians are largely Sunni Muslims, and Shi’ite Hezbollah has battled Sunni rebels in Syria in a conflict tinged with sectarianism.
At the Zawiat Dahmani mosque in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, hundreds of worshippers heard the imam, Ali Gadoor, rail against Trump and his decision. He urged those gathered to wage war against Israel. But he also focused his ire on moderate Arab leaders who are key allies of the US, referring mainly to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations.
‘‘How come they are putting dollars in American banks?’’ Gadoor asked. ‘‘Why are they selling oil to the American government? They should withdraw all their dollars from the United States. They should stop selling oil. They need to support the Palestinians.’’
Gadoor added that he trusted Hamas in Gaza but no longer had any faith in the Abbas government in the West Bank. Washington Post