Yahoo News At least 60 Palestinians killed as Israeli forces open fire during Gaza border protests
Tensions were high in Gaza on Tuesday as Palestinians rallied for the funerals of scores of people killed by Israeli troops on Monday
At least 60 Palestinians were killed and 1,200 more were injured by Israeli forces during violent protests along the Gaza border.
It was the deadliest day on the fraught border since a devastating 2014 war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
Gaza protesters set tires ablaze, sending thick plumes of black smoke into the air, and hurled firebombs and stones toward Israeli troops across the border.
The Israeli military, which has come under international criticism for using excessive force against unarmed protesters, said Hamas tried to carry out bombing and shooting attacks under the cover of the protests and released video of protesters ripping away parts of the barbed-wire border fence.
The 60 deaths – including an eight-month-old baby girl and four other minors – came on the day Ivanka Trump was present to celebrate an inauguration ceremony for the new American Embassy in contested Jerusalem.
In the House of Commons on Tuesday, an urgent question about the deaths was asked by Labour MP and shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry.
She said: “What makes yesterday’s events all the worse is that they didn’t come as a result of some accidental over-reaction to one day’s protest, but as the result of a culmination of six weeks, an apparently calculated and deliberate policy to kill and main unarmed protesters, who posed no threat to the forces on the Gaza border.
“Many of them shot in the back. Many of them shot hundreds of metres from the border, and many of them children.
“And if we are in any doubt about the lethal intent of the Israeli snipers working on the border, I’m afraid we only need to look at the wounds suffered by their victims.
“On hunting websites in America, they regularly debate the merits of 7.6 mm bullets versus the 5.5 mm bullets. The latter, they say, is effective when you want to wound multiple internal organs, while the former is preferred by some because, and I quote, ‘it is designed to mushroom and fragment, to do maximum internal damage to the animal’.
“And it was this ammunition, it is alleged, that was used in Gaza yesterday against men, women and children.”
Foreign secretary Boris Johnson told the Commons: “I am deeply saddened by the loss of life in Gaza where peaceful protests are being exploited by extremists.
“I urge Israel to show restraint in the use of live fire and I take this opportunity to repeat the UK’s commitment to a two-state solution with Jerusalem as the shared capital.”
The US Embassy move, bitterly opposed by the Palestinians, added further fuel to the violence.
There was barely any mention of the Gaza violence at the lavish inauguration ceremony for the new embassy, an upgraded consular building located just 50 miles away.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials joined an American delegation of Trump administration officials and Republican and evangelical Christian supporters.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and chief Mideast adviser, headlined the US delegation with his wife and fellow White House adviser, Ivanka.
“A great day for Israel!” Mr Trump tweeted earlier on Monday.
Mr Trump says recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital acknowledges the reality that Israel’s government is located there as well as the ancient Jewish connection to the city.
He insists the decision has no impact on future negotiations on the city’s final borders, but to both Israel and the Palestinians, the American gesture is widely seen as siding with Israel on the most sensitive issue in their longstanding conflict.
The Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as their capital, have cut off ties with the Trump administration and say the US is unfit to serve as a mediator.
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At least 58 Palestinians killed as Israeli forces open fire during Gaza border protests
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area in a move that is not internationally recognised.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, furious over the embassy ceremony, said he “will not accept” any peace deal proposed by the Trump administration.
The Palestinian president also urged the international community to condemn what he said were “massacres” carried out by Israeli troops in Gaza, and officials said the Palestinians would file a war crimes complaint against Israel in the International Criminal Court over settlement construction.
The Israeli military estimated a turnout of about 40,000 at Monday’s protest, saying it fell short of what Hamas had hoped for.
But officials described what they called “unprecedented violence” unseen in previous weeks.
Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said hundreds of protesters carried out “concerted, coordinated” attacks on the border fence.
Although the crowd did not manage to break through, he said they caused “significant damage”.
A day of mourning and mass funerals was planned on Tuesday.
