Qatar slams aggression against Gaza border protesters
Qatar expressed its strong condemnation of the brutal repression and the use of live bullets by the Israeli occupying forces against the ongoing Great March of Return protests on the eastern border of the Gaza Strip, which led to the martyrdom of seven Palestinians and injuries to dozens more.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the Israeli escalation was a violation of international laws and conventions, calling on the international community and the UN Security Council to assume their responsibility in containing the Israeli war machine and its collective punishment policy directed against the Palestinian people.
The statement also called on the international community to provide protection for the innocent civilians.
It highlighted Qatar’s firm support to the Palestinian cause and the struggle of the Palestinian people in order to guarantee the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with the 1967 borders and Jerusalem as its capital.
It also stressed the right of refugees to return to their lands.
At least seven Palestinians were martyred and dozens others injured by live bullets or sustained suffocation from teargas inhalation yesterday as Israeli occupation forces continued to attack the ongoing protests at Gaza border.
Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians yesterday in protests along Gaza’s border, Gaza health officials said.
Israel said its troops had shot a group who broke through the fence with a bomb and attacked an army post. The Palestinian deaths bring to around 200 the number of Gazans killed since the border protests began on March 30, according to Palestinian Health Ministry figures.
Gaza medics said that, in addition to the seven dead, around 140 others were wounded. The Israeli military said that the demonstrators, numbering around 15,000, had been “hurling rocks, explosive devices, firebombs and grenades” at Israeli troops and at the fence.
Israeli military spokesman Lt Col Jonathan Conricus tweeted that one group had “detonated a bomb on the Israel-Gaza border fence”, allowing around 20 people to climb through the hole.
He said around five of the group had then launched an organised attack against a military post inside Israel and all had been killed by the troops.
The Palestinian protesters are demanding an end to an Israeli and Egyptian blockade on the narrow coastal strip, which is home to around 2mn Gazans.
They also seek the right to return to lands that Palestinians fled or were driven from upon Israel’s founding in 1948.
Israel accuses the Hamas, which controls Gaza, of orchestrating the protests along the border fence to provide cover for attacks and to distract from Gaza’s economic plight. Hamas denies the allegations. The Israeli military has been criticised by Palestinians and international human rights groups for its lethal response to the protests.
It says its troops have used “riot dispersal means” and have fired “in accordance with standard operating procedures”. One Israeli soldier has been killed by a Palestinian sniper during the weekly protests, and tracts of Israeli land have been scorched by incendiary kites and balloons. Hamas seized control of Gaza from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007 and has since fought three wars with Israel, most recently in 2014.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, addressing a conference in Istanbul from Gaza, said yesterday that Hamas was seeking to reach understandings with several parties, including the United Nations.
He expressed hope that the efforts “could lead to calm in return for breaking the siege”.