Tag: Nakba Day

The Palestine Cause Took Centrestage at FIFA World Cup. What Happens Next?

Will Palestine prove to be a ticklish issue for Arab regimes as they discover new bounties in search of a post-fossil economy?

“We will become a people when the Palestinian only remembers his flag on the football pitch, at camel races, and on the day of the Nakba”
– Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“Football is the one that achieved the miracle behind the siege when it spread movement in a street that we thought died of fear and boredom.”
—Mahmoud Darwish

With the Qatar 2022 World Cup coming to an end, the optics of the big thaw has its frame frozen. The storming of the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa mosque by the Israeli National Security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on January 3 has inflamed growing tensions and was widely viewed as a provocative act.

While the Saudis condemned it, likewise the King of Jordan said: “We have to be concerned about the next intifada (uprising).” It was feeding into the fears raised by the Palestinians with the new Netanyahu government, saying the agenda of the newly sworn-in government poses an ‘existential threat’. This was enough for the United Nations Security Council to call an urgent meeting on January 5, according to a tweet shared by the UAE’s mission to the UN.

In 2023, the UAE, which assumed its role as the chair of the counter-terrorism committee, and China, called for the UN meeting over Ben-Gvir’s Al-Aqsa visit. During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located. The occupation state annexed the entire city in 1980, a move never recognised by the international community.

World Cup and its solidarity fervour

A week after curtains came down on the Qatar 2022 World Cup final between France and Argentina, with La Albiceleste emerging as the world champions, in the geopolitical world of West Asia, a different winner was being talked about.

“The winner of this World Cup is already known, it is Palestine,” tweeted Riyad Mansour, the Palestine ambassador and permanent observer to the UN.

This may come as a surprise to those not in the know of the undercurrents at play in West Asia and how it invades the game of football at the first World Cup in the Arab world. Neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli teams qualified, yet this FIFA World Cup was all about them as a subtext.

Western journalists took notice and focused on the explosion of solidarity expressed with Palestinians at this World Cup.

Before the opening match, a phalanx of Qatari men marched into the Al-Bayt Stadium chanting, “Everyone is welcome,” carrying with them a large Palestinian flag. “We are taking care of people in Palestine, and all Muslim people and Arab countries are holding up Palestinian flags because we’re for them,” reported The Guardian.

It appeared that the Palestinian cause was embraced by many other teams and fans alike. Streets were decorated with Palestinian flags while many wore the keffiyeh as the news began to circulate that the Israeli media was being shunned by the locals and fans. The American media picked up the news: The New York Times reported and so did The Washington Post.  The latter ran it with the header: “At the World Cup, the Arab world rallies to Palestinian cause.”

A display of pro-Palestinian solidarity also gained momentum with Morocco’s historic run to the semi-finals. Ayman Mohyeldin wrote in MSNBC: “This World Cup provides a rare example of a free and collective Arab expression, and Arab fans have made the Palestinian flag and other symbols of Palestinian struggle present at nearly every game.”

It was a poignant moment that resonated with many when a Tunisian fan unfurled the Palestinian flag during the France-Tunisia match amid chants of Palestine, Palestine! Equally powerful and symbolic moments arose when a huge “Free Palestine” banner was raised by Moroccan and Tunisian fans against Australia and Belgium, respectively. It was not a random act that the banner was raised at the 48th minute of the respective games.

The 48th minute was symbolic of 1948 and alludes to the Nakba, “the catastrophe” that Palestinians have vowed not to let the world forget what they endured in killings and expulsions as the Zionist forces created the state of Israel on the occupied lands of Palestine. This comes close on the heels of the UN General Assembly’s approval of a resolution to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba and includes the organising of a high-level event at the General Assembly on May 15, 2023.

Palestine ambassador’s tweet amplifies the sentiments expressed in the famous lines of Mahmoud Darwish, the beloved poet of Palestine, “We will become a people when the Palestinian only remembers his flag on the football pitch, at camel races, and on the day of the Nakba.”

Palestinian demonstrators run for cover from Israeli fire and tear gas during a protest against US embassy move to Jerusalem and ahead of the 70th anniversary of Nakba, at the Israel-Gaza border in the southern Gaza Strip, May 14, 2018. Photo: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

World Cup activism

Political agendas have always been brought onto the football pitch. One of the modalities is the acquisition of the football teams – Qatar’s Paris Saint-Germain; Saudi Arabia’s Newcastle United, and with a new sale price, Manchester United owner Avram Glazer is said to have held talks with potential investors from Saudi and Qatar.

Similarly, the showcasing of new Afro-Arab solidarity by football fans on the issue of Palestine brought home the centrality of Palestine to the political consciousness in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries.

The biggest cheerleaders of this were the Morocco team and the Moroccan fans.

The story of Raja Casablanca is illuminating. During the Qatar World Cup, a video went viral showing the revolutionary fans of Casablanca in the stadium singing together unitedly in favour of Palestine. However, the fact-checkers informed us that this did not happen at the FIFA World Cup. But this is not the first time one has seen Raja’s fans perform their solidarity for the Palestine cause.

In fact, their fan culture pivots on Palestine: their jerseys have the words Rajawi Filistini (Palestinian Rajawis). Their own anthem Fi blady dalmouni, a ballad of the disenfranchised, reads “In my country, they have oppressed me.”

The bonds go deep. In June 2019, the Moroccan people rallied in support of Palestine against the proposed Abraham Accords.

What the Qatar World Cup was able to do was to put back the Palestine issue in front of the emerging relations in the geo-political configurations as per the Abraham Accords. It also reflects the 2020 Arab Opinion Index in the run-up to the normalisation that was not totally off the mark.

Also read: What We Can Expect From Joe Biden’s Policy Towards West Asia

What are the Abraham Accords?

It has been two years since the Abraham Accords declaration and these scenes were not expected to play. From August to December 2020, four nations – Bahrain, Morocco, the UAE, and Sudan — as signatories committed to new forms of cooperation in West Asia and beyond with the primary objective to usher in diplomatic processes to normalise bilateral ties with Israel. With former US President Trump as a witness to these declarations, it was projected that these Accords could create 4 million new jobs and $1 trillion in new economic activity.

Two narratives emerged with this normalisation process, as the Accords were alluded to, and became the centerpiece in West Asia. One, it was a direct initiative to counter China’s economic inroads and growing influence in West Asia through its Belt and Road Initiative, and two, the subject of relations between Palestinian and Gulf Arab nations and the manipulation of the Palestinian cause.

From the level of the government to the general people, there are deep sources of tension that continue to feed impressions of the other based on prejudices and unresolved disputes.

With the new compact bringing the Gulf Arab nations closer to Israel, these narratives are exposing the deep fissures and complexity of the socio-economic changes that are experienced as a quotidian reality. Despite the football spectacle, Abraham Accords versus World Legends, held in March towards the end of Expo Dubai, where the Abraham Accords were battered, one wonders if the Qatar FIFA World Cup 2022 is a counterpoint to the Expo Dubai.

Also read: Interview: How to Make a Film About a Polarised, Conflict-Ridden Society

The issue of Palestine in the afterlife of World Cup activism

One doesn’t have to go digging to comprehend the political significance of the game of football. Notwithstanding the Foreign Policy piece titled ‘The Tragedy of Pro-Palestinian Activism at the World Cup’, much will depend on how the question of Palestine is framed in the post-Qatar World Cup.

Will Palestine be a ticklish issue for the Arab regimes as they discover new bounties in search of the post-fossil economy on the pathway of the Abraham Accords? Or, will Palestine represent the political aspiration of the Arab people? Perhaps, the first clue will emerge on May 15, when the UN General Assembly will commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba.

As the neoliberal cheerleaders proclaimed that by the turn of the century, the world had become flat, I am reminded of the author and journalist Franklin Foer’s “How soccer explains the world: an (unlikely) theory of globalisation” which explains the failure of globalisation to erode ancient hatreds in the game’s greatest rivalries. Further, this has to be juxtaposed with the economic imperatives of the concomitant issues of inequalities, corruption and migration.

Often affinity to irony bonds people who like football and literature. More so, in the vein of the great Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa: “The match can be a novel, because it has a beginning, development and emotional moments with happy endings. And sometimes tragic.”

On the other hand, some regard it as the “round witch”, whose movement opens up the way for a unified world, resonating the lines of Mahmoud Darwish.

Narendra Pachkhédé is a critic and writer who splits his time between Toronto, London and Geneva.

Stop Telling Palestinians to Be ‘Resilient’ When the World Has Failed Them

By promoting Palestinian resilience instead of holding Israel accountable for its multiple breaches of international law, the international community is masking its own failures.

Viewed from Palestine, it’s hard to disagree that we’ve perhaps seen one of the most inflammatory weeks in recent memory. In just a few days, several extremely sensitive events have coincided to devastating effect: the culmination of weekly protests in the Gaza Strip, the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the 70th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba (from the Arabic, “Immense Catastrophe”) and the start of the holy month of Ramadan. Throw in for good measure Israel and Iran’s recent clash over the occupied Golan Heights and it seems that more than ever, the region is something of a tinderbox.

As 800 guests arrived in Jerusalem to bear witness to the US embassy’s relocation – 33 of them representatives from foreign embassies – protesters in the Gaza Strip were being shot and killed. In what’s been dubbed the Great March of Return, Palestinians in Gaza (the vast majority of whom are refugees, or descended from refugees) have amassed at the edge of the territory to demand their right of return, a right that is protected under international law. So far, their demands have been met with a brutal show of force, with more than 50 Palestinians shot dead, including children, paramedics and journalists.

Much is being made of the US’s decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and perhaps rightly so. Undoubtedly, that change is symbolically resonant. But there is a risk that focusing too narrowly on that issue will obscure a far deeper issue: the continued destruction of the fabric of Palestinian society and ongoing attacks on Palestinian civil liberties.

As others have reported, the embassy move does little to change the actual reality of Palestinians living under occupation in the city. What it does do is remove any naive notion that the US is acting as an honest broker for peace.

Those who are calling the embassy move the death of the two-state solution would do well to look more critically at recent history. Israel has aggressively ramped up the construction of settlements; the Israeli military has killed scores of Palestinian protesters in Gaza (not just this week), and civilian infrastructure has been damaged and destroyed across the Occupied Territories. All the while, world governments have failed to hold Israel to account.

Instead, as Israel entrenches its occupation, the Palestinian National Authority continues its state-building efforts and the international development industry’s failures become clear, the Palestinians are being asked to develop a greater capacity for “resilience”.

The ‘resilience’ agenda

Resilience, it seems, is the buzzword of the day. It’s particularly popular in the field of international development, where it’s used to evoke a capacity to “bounce back”, survive, or more optimistically “thrive” in the face of extreme adversity. International organisations have turned their attention to promoting “resilience” both individually and at community level, to better equip people to cope and overcome adversity.

Palestinian demonstrators at the Israel-Gaza border in the southern Gaza Strip, May 14, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Looking at the state of Palestinian society and standards of living today, it’s abundantly clear that the international development sector has failed in its mission. And yet a “resilience industry” has taken hold in Palestine, and the discourse of resilience is everywhere. It has crept into the operational language of major international organisations, including the United Nations Development Programme, an organisation that recently hosted two major international conferences focusing on the development of Palestinian resilience.

This agenda is disingenuous on a number of levels and as it becomes a driving force in the international development agenda in Palestine, it needs to be viewed more critically than it currently is. For a start, it’s not clear how its achievements are to be evaluated. But more than that, Palestinians don’t need lessons in resilience from an international community that has utterly failed in its stated mission.

By promoting Palestinian resilience instead of holding Israel accountable for its multiple breaches of international law and its involvement in the destruction of Palestinian society, the international community is masking its own failures – and shamefully abdicating its responsibility to the people it claims to be helping.

The ConversationDr Emma Keelan contributed to this article. She is currently pursuing an MA in Global Health at the University of Manchester’s Humanitarian Conflict Response Institute. Her research involves conducting fieldwork on Palestine, resilience and international NGOs.

Brendan Ciarán Browne, Assistant Professor and Course Coordinator MPhil Conflict Resolution, Trinity College Dublin

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Gazans Bury Dead After Bloodiest Day of Border Protests

The death toll rose to 60 overnight after an eight-month-old baby died from tear gas that she inhaled at a protest camp on Monday.

Gaza: Palestinians rallied in Gaza on Tuesday for the funerals of scores of people killed by Israeli troops a day earlier, while 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-month-old baby died from tear gas that her family said she inhaled at a protest camp on Monday. 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 has said it is acting in self-defence to defend its borders and communities. Its main ally the US has backed that stance, with both saying that Hamas, the Islamist group that rules the coastal enclave, instigated the violence.

There were fears of further bloodshed on Tuesday 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 neighbors in 1948.

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. It was unclear whether large crowds would turn up at the border on Tuesday for the climax to the campaign after the heavy fatalities suffered on Monday.

Palestinian medical officials say that 104 Gazans have now died since the start of the protests on March 30. No Israeli casualties have been reported.

Israeli troops deployed along the border again on Tuesday. The area was relatively quiet early in the day, with many Gazans at the funerals. Protesters are expected to go to the border later.

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 spokesman Rupert Colville said Israel had a right to defend its borders according to international law, but lethal force must only be used a last resort, and was not justified by Palestinians approaching the Gaza fence.

More than two million people are crammed into the narrow Gaza Strip, which is blockaded by Egypt and Israel and suffering a humanitarian crisis.

Young Victim

At the Gaza hospital where the body of eight-month-old Laila al-Ghandour was being prepared for burial, her grandmother said the child was at one of the tented protest encampments that have been set up a few hundred yards inside the border.

“We were at the tent camp east of Gaza when the Israelis fired lots of tear gas,” Heyam Omar said.

“Suddenly my son cried at me that Lolo was weeping and screaming. I took her further away. When we got back home, the baby stopped crying and I thought she was asleep. I took her to the children’s hospital and the doctor told me she was martyred (dead).”

Palestinian demonstrators run for cover from Israeli fire and tear gas during a protest against US embassy move to Jerusalem and ahead of the 70th anniversary of Nakba, at the Israel-Gaza border in the southern Gaza Strip, May 14, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File photo

Palestinian demonstrators run for cover from Israeli fire and tear gas during a protest against US embassy move to Jerusalem and ahead of the 70th anniversary of Nakba, at the Israel-Gaza border in the southern Gaza Strip, May 14, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File photo

Most of the protesters stay around the tent camps, but groups of youths have ventured closer to the no-go zone along the fence, risking live fire from Israeli troops to roll burning tyres and throw stones.

Some have flown kites carrying containers of petrol that have spread fires on the Israeli side.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered a general strike across the Palestinian Territories on Tuesday and three days of national mourning.

Monday’s protests were fired 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.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s decisions but Palestinians have said the US can no longer serve as an honest broker in any peace process. Talks aimed a finding a two-state solution to the conflict have been frozen since 2014.

Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the Gaza violence. Hamas denied instigating it but the White House backed Netanyahu.

“The responsibility for these tragic deaths rests squarely with Hamas. Hamas is intentionally and cynically provoking this response,” White House spokesman Raj Shah told reporters.

Trump, in a recorded message on Monday, said he remained committed to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. He was represented at the embassy ceremony by his daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, US envoy to the Middle East.

The Trump administration says it has nearly completed a new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan but is undecided on how and when to roll it out.

The US on Monday blocked a Kuwait-drafted UN Security Council statement that would have expressed “outrage and sorrow at the killing of Palestinian civilians” and called for an independent investigation, UN diplomats said.

(Reuters)

Israeli Forces Kill 41 in Gaza Protests as Anger Mounts Over US Embassy

The protests, dubbed the ‘Great March of Return,’ are scheduled to climax on Tuesday, the day that Palestinians mourn as the ‘Nakba’ or ‘Catastrophe’.

Gaza border: Israeli forces killed at least 41 Palestinians along the Gaza border on Monday as angry protesters demonstrated at the frontier on the day the United States opened its embassy in Jerusalem, health officials said.

It was the highest Palestinian death toll in a single day since a series of protests dubbed the “Great March of Return” began at the border with Israel on March 30, and since the 2014 Gaza war.

The health officials said 900 Palestinians were wounded, about 450 of them by live bullets.

Tens of thousands streamed to the coastal enclave’s land border on Monday, some approaching the Israeli fence – a line Israeli leaders said Palestinians would not be allowed to breach.Clouds of black smoke from tyres set alight by demonstrators rose in the air.

Demonstrators, some armed with slingshots, hurled stones at the Israeli security forces, who fired volleys of tear gas and intense rounds of gunfire.

“Today is the big day when we will cross the fence and tell Israel and the world we will not accept being occupied forever,” said Gaza science teacher Ali, who declined to give his last name.

“Many may get martyred today, so many, but the world will hear our message. Occupation must end,” he said.

Israeli leaders and a US delegation including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and President Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, were due to attend the opening of the embassy, relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a controversial decision.

“A great day for Israel,” the US president, who stoked Arab anger by recognising disputed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December, said in a tweet.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in lockstep with Trump over fulfilling a long-standing US promise to move the embassy to the holy city and over Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal last week, echoed the sentiment.

“What a moving day for the people of Israel and the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said.

The Palestinians, who seek their own future state with its capital in East Jerusalem, have been outraged by Trump’s shift from previous administrations’ preference for keeping the US Embassy in Tel Aviv pending progress in peace efforts.

Those talks, aimed a finding a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, have been frozen since 2014. Other international powers worry that the US move could also inflame Palestinian unrest in the occupied West Bank, which Israel captured along with East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war.

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.

Man in wheelchair killed

The 41 Palestinian dead on Monday included a 14-year-old boy, a medic and a man in a wheelchair who had been pictured on social media using a slingshot.

The Israeli military identified three of those killed as armed militants whom it said tried to place explosives near the fence in the southern Gaza Strip.

The latest casualties raised the Palestinian death toll to 86 since the protests started six weeks ago. No Israeli casualties have been reported.

At the protest sites, families sat in the shade of tents nearly 800 metres (yards) from the border fence. Hundreds of protesters ventured to within several hundred metres of the barrier, while others moved even closer, rolling burning tyres and hurling stones.

Some flew flaming kites to try and torch bushes on the other side of the frontier and distract Israeli marksmen. Hundreds of Palestinians were treated for tear gas inhalation.

“The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will act forcefully against any terrorist activity and will operate to prevent attacks against Israelis,” the military said in a statement.

The killings have drawn international criticism, but the United States has echoed Israel in accusing Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement of instigating violence, an allegation it denies.

More than 2 million people are crammed into the narrow strip, which is blockaded by Egypt and Israel

Kushner promotes peace deal

In excerpts seen by Reuters of a speech he planned to deliver at the embassy inauguration ceremony, Kushner said it is possible for both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “to gain move than they give” in any peace deal.

“Jerusalem must remain a city that brings people of all faiths together,” Kushner, the US envoy to the Middle East, will say at the opening.

The Trump administration has nearly completed a long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace plan but is still undecided on how and when to roll it out, given Palestinians’ outrage over the embassy move and their contention that Washington can no longer be an honest broker.

Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, in a statement on Monday, accused the United States of “blatant violations of international law”.

The protests are scheduled to culminate on Tuesday, the day Palestinians mourn as the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” when, in 1948, hundreds of thousands of them were driven out of their homes or fled the fighting around Israel’s creation.

“Choosing a tragic day in Palestinian history (to open the Jerusalem embassy) shows great insensibility and disrespect for the core principles of the peace process,” Hamdallah wrote.

In London, the British government said it had no plans to move its Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and said it disagreed with the US decision to do so.

The Russian government said it feared the embassy move would increase tensions across the Middle East.

But Guatemala, which received support from Israel in its counter-insurgency campaigns in the 1980s, plans to open an embassy in Jerusalem on Wednesday. Paraguay intends to follow suit later this month.

(Reuters) 

Israel Closes Gaza Border Crossing Damaged by Palestinian Protestors

“The crossing will remain closed until the damage caused by the riots are repaired and will reopen in accordance with a situation assessment,” the Israeli military said.

Gaza: Israel closed a main border crossing with the Gaza Strip and destroyed a Hamas militant tunnel on Saturday, a day after renewed violence between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces on the edge of the coastal enclave.

Dozens of Palestinian demonstrators had broken into the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom terminal, the main conduit for goods in and out of the territory, on Friday. They set alight a pipeline that delivers gas from Israel, torched a conveyor belt and damaged a fuel pipe.

“The crossing will remain closed until the damage caused by the riots are repaired and will reopen in accordance with a situation assessment,” the Israeli military said. It will be opened for humanitarian cases only in the meantime, it said.

Later on Saturday, Israeli war planes destroyed an underground attack tunnel near the border that was being built by Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, to help militants cross into Israel, the military said.

The tunnel had reached just a few meters from the border, adjacent to Israeli communities, the military said. “It was approximately one kilometer long. It was dug over a number of months and we have been following it for a number of weeks,” spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said.

Israel says it has destroyed several cross-border militant tunnels in recent months. Palestinian gunmen used tunnels to blindside Israeli forces during the 2014 Gaza war.

Embassy to open

More than two million people are packed into the narrow Gaza Strip, where poverty and unemployment rates are high. Kerem Shalom is one of three main Gaza border crossings with Israel and Egypt, but it is where most goods pass through daily.

The incursion into Kerem Shalom took place during a weekly mass protest in which thousands of Palestinians gathered along the Israel-Gaza border.

Palestinian health officials said a man and a teenager were killed by Israeli fire on Friday. The Israeli military said the crowd had grown violent and that troops were defending the border.

More than 40 Palestinians have been killed during six weeks of protests and tens of thousands of Gazans are expected at tented border encampments in the coming days. It was unclear to some Gaza residents why the demonstrators chose to attack the terminal.

“I cannot find one good reason for what happened, what is the wisdom behind this?” said one gas station owner, who asked not to be identified. “Some petrol stations have storage for maybe a day or two, so the crisis will begin by Monday or Tuesday should the crossing remained closed,” he said.

The Palestinian National Committee said it was surprised by the “non-deliberate and unfortunate incident” at Kerem Shalom and called on Palestinians to preserve the crossings.

Gaza is run by Hamas, which Israel and the West designate a terrorist organization. Citing security concerns, Israel maintains tight control over its land and sea borders. Egypt also restricts movement in and out of Gaza.

The border protests are building to a climax on May 15, the day Palestinians call the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe”, marking the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the conflict surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948.

They take place at a time of growing frustration over the prospects for an independent Palestinian state. Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been stalled for several years and Israeli settlements in the occupied territories have expanded.

US President Donald Trump’s decision last year to recognise disputed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US Embassy there further fueled Palestinian anger. The new embassy is due to open on Monday.

(Reuters)

Four Palestinians Killed by Israeli Troops on Gaza-Israel Border

The deaths included a 15-year-old boy shot dead in northern Gaza, Palestinian health officials said, adding that 156 people were wounded by Israeli gunfire.

Gaza: Israeli troops shot dead four Palestinians on the Gaza-Israel border on April 20, bringing to 35 the death toll in recent weeks among Palestinian protesters demanding the right to return to their former homeland.

Gazans used catapults and sling-shots to launch stones at Israeli forces, and some Palestinians brought wire-cutters to cut through the border fence, ignoring leaflets dropped by the Israeli military warning residents not to approach the frontier.

The deaths included a 15-year-old boy shot dead in northern Gaza, Palestinian health officials said, adding that 156 people were wounded by Israeli gunfire.

UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov wrote on Twitter: “It is outrageous to shoot at children! How does the killing of a child in Gaza today help peace? It doesn’t! It fuels anger and breeds more killing. Children must be protected from violence, not exposed to it.”

In response, a retired former Israeli army spokesman, Peter Lerner, tweeted suggestions to Mladenov, including: “Please go to Gaza, engage Hamas and get them to stop sending people to the fence.”

The planned six-week protest campaign reached its half-way point on April 20, which saw smaller crowds than in recent weeks. As the numbers peaked during the afternoon Israeli soldiers called out warnings in Arabic over loudspeakers to anyone who approached the border fence.

Black plumes of smoke from piles of burning tyres billowed over the area, and stretcher-bearers rushed to carry the wounded to first aid posts.

The protest began on March 30, and has seen tent encampments spring up near the Israeli-imposed restricted zone along the 40km (25-mile) border fence. The protesters have revived demands for Palestinian refugees to regain their ancestral homes in what is now Israel.

The protests are scheduled to culminate on May 15, when, according to Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, the Gaza scenes would be replicated elsewhere on Israel’s frontiers.

“I say to our people everywhere, be prepared for a human deluge on all of the borders of Palestine, inside the occupied land and outside the occupied land,” he said on a visit to one of the border camps. “I say to the (Israeli occupiers) your time is gone.”

Israel’s use of live fire has drawn international criticism but the Israeli government says it is protecting its borders and takes such action when protesters come too close to the border fence.

The Israeli military said that around 3,000 Palestinians were involved in the latest protest, and that its troops responded “with riot dispersal means and are firing in accordance with the rules of engagement.”

Israel accuses Hamas, the Islamist militant group which rules Gaza, of staging riots and trying to carry out attacks. Hamas denies this. Although organisers say the main protest is intended to be peaceful, some protesters have advanced toward the border from the encampments to hurl stones and burning tyres near the fence.

On April 20 they fitted kites with cans of flammable liquid, which they flew across the border to start fires in Israel.

“We aim to distract the soldiers from shooting and wounding or killing our people,” said Mohammad Abu Mustafa, 17, who lost his right leg a few months ago after being shot by an Israeli soldier.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry tweeted a photograph of one kite daubed with a swastika flying through the sky trailing flames.

Packed in

More than 2 million Palestinians are packed into the narrow coastal enclave. Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but maintains tight control of its land and sea borders. Egypt also restricts movement in and out of Gaza on its border.

The protest campaign, dubbed The Great March of Return, is leading up to May 15, when Palestinians mark Nakba Day, or the Day of Catastrophe, commemorating their displacement around the time of Israel’s founding in 1948.

It takes place at a time of growing frustration over the prospects for an independent Palestinian state. Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been stalled for several years and Israeli settlements in the occupied territories have expanded.

US President Donald Trump’s decision last year to recognise disputed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital further fuelled Palestinian anger.

In an apparent sign of concern over the bloodshed on the border, the Israeli-American Hollywood actress Natalie Portman announced she was pulling out of a ceremony in Israel to accept a million-dollar prize because of “distressing” events in the country.

In a statement, the Genesis Prize Foundation quoted a representative for Portman as saying: “Recent events in Israel have been extremely distressing to her and she does not feel comfortable participating in any public events in Israel.”

It gave no further details of her reasons. But the foundation said it “admires her humanity, and respects her right to publicly disagree with the policies of the government of Israel”.

Israel’s culture minister, Miri Regev, suggested the actress was supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to isolate Israel economically over its treatment of Palestinians. Israel sees the BDS movement as an attempt to delegitimise it.

The Genesis Prize is awarded to individuals for excellence in their professional fields and “who inspire others through their dedication to the Jewish community and Jewish values”.

(Reuters)