Palestine: More reports,
PALESTINIANS rallied in Gaza yesterday for the funerals of scores of people killed by Israeli troops a day earlier.
On the Gaza-Israel border, Israeli forces took up positions to deal with the expected final day of a Palestinian protest campaign.
Monday’s violence on the border, which took place as the US opened its new embassy in Jerusalem, was the bloodiest for Palestinians since the 2014 Gaza conflict.
The death toll rose to 60 overnight after an eight-monthold baby died from tear gas that her family said she inhaled at a protest camp. More than 2 200 Palestinians were also injured by gunfire or tear gas.
Palestinian leaders have called Monday’s events a massacre, and the Israeli tactic of using live fire against the protesters has drawn worldwide concern and condemnation.
Israel said it was acting in self-defence to defend its borders and communities.
Its main ally the US backed that stance, with both saying Hamas, the Islamist group that rules the coastal enclave, instigated the violence.
There were fears of further bloodshed yesterday as Palestinians planned a further protest to mark the “Nakba”, or “Catastrophe”.
That is the day Palestinians lament the creation of Israel in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in violence culminating in war between the newly created Jewish state and its Arab neighbours.
A six-week campaign of border protests dubbed “The Great March of Return” has revived calls for refugees to have the right of return to their former lands, which now lie inside Israel.
Palestinian doctors say 104 Gazans have now been killed since the start of the protests and nearly 11 000 people wounded, about 3 500 of them hit by live fire. No Israeli casualties have been reported.
Israeli troops backed by tanks deployed along the border again yesterday.
The area was relatively quiet early in the day, with many Gazans at the funerals.
In Geneva, the UN human rights office condemned what it called the “appalling deadly violence” by Israeli forces and said it was extremely worried about what might happen later.
UN human rights spokesperson Rupert Colville said Israel had a right to defend its borders according to international law, but lethal force must only be a last resort, and was not justified by Palestinians approaching the Gaza fence.
More than 2 million people are crammed into the narrow Gaza Strip, which is blockaded by Egypt and Israel and suffering a humanitarian crisis.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered a general strike across the Palestinian territories and three days of national mourning.
Monday’s protests were ignited by the opening ceremony for the new US embassy in Jerusalem following its relocation from Tel Aviv.
The move fulfilled a pledge by US President Donald Trump, who in December recognised the contested city as the Israeli capital.
Palestinians envision East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they hope to establish in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel regards all of Jerusalem, including the eastern sector it captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move that is not recognised internationally, as its “eternal and indivisible capital”. Most countries say the status of Jerusalem – a sacred city to Jews, Muslims and Christians – should be determined in a final peace settlement and that moving their embassies now would prejudge any such deal.