A group of Palestinian women who had gathered near the fence were standing next to another woman when she was shot. (photo: Declan Walsh / The New York Times)
A reporter’s account of a sniper shooting at the Gaza-Israel fence.
I finally learned the wounded woman’s name — Alaa Asawafiri — when I found her mother in a hospital corridor, her cheeks smeared with tears, clutching her daughter’s silver sneakers in a plastic bag.
A nervous frisson ran through the crowd as it pushed toward the fence between Gaza and Israel on Sunday evening, halting 75 feet from the wire.
I had traveled to Gaza from Cairo ahead of what are expected to be enormous demonstrations at the border fence this week. I wanted to first see the site of the protests on what I thought would be an uneventful evening.
“The mere fact of approaching a fence is not a lethal, life-threatening act, so that does not warrant being shot. It seems that anyone is liable to be shot dead. . . . It is not acceptable to say that ‘this is Hamas and therefore this is OK.’”
— Rupert Colville, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesman
International condemnation of Israel’s killing of 59 Palestinian protesters in Gaza escalated as thousands rallied in the coastal enclave to bury the dead from the latest round of violence.
The killings took place on Monday during demonstrations at the Gaza border fence, which coincided with a high-profile ceremony to mark the controversial transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem by the Trump administration that overturned decades of US foreign policy.
As senior UN rights officials condemned the killings as an “outrageous human rights violation” — adding that it appeared anyone approaching the Gaza border fence was liable to be killed by Israeli soldiers — Ireland summoned Israel’s ambassador to protest against the fatalities.
Whether you agree or not, under President Trump, the United States is not pretending anything. We have declared unambiguously that we care only about Israel’s interests — or, to be more accurate, Israel’s interests as understood by the conservative Likud party — and that we no longer have any concern for Palestinian rights, Palestinian lives or the eventual creation of a Palestinian state.
Monday marked the moment when the policy of the United States government toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lost all complexity, all ambiguity and all nuance.
On Monday, we were confronted with two sets of pictures. On one side, thousands of Palestinians gathering at the Gaza border to protest are being shot down by Israeli snipers. As I write, at least 43 people have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry; those numbers will undoubtedly rise.
On the other side, representatives of the Trump administration, including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, some Republican donors and a couple of evangelical megachurch pastors who have said vile, bigoted things about Islam and Muslims, are celebrating the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
Settlers’ rapidly growing presence in East Jerusalem, along with Monday’s embassy move, indicate that while Trump may still float the possibility of a “two-state solution,” his actions are pointing into the opposite direction.
Why do so many countries refuse to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital?
So, is it only about Jerusalem?
Why is a “two-state solution” so difficult to facilitate?
Israel is bracing for a tense week as the U.S. Embassy officially opens in Jerusalem on Monday — a move that has triggered fierce protests by Palestinians. Protests turned violent in Gaza, where dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers in clashes along the border fence Monday, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, making it the bloodiest day of demonstrations in the past six weeks of protests.
Overall, more than 80 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and almost 4,000 have been injured since President Trump announced the embassy move early in December.
Observers of the conflict had already predicted the tensions when Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announced the move. At the time, the decision was branded “dangerous,” “catastrophic,” “irresponsible” and being “against international law” by countries usually considered U.S. allies, including France, Germany and Saudi Arabia.
Israeli forces opened fire on demonstrators in Gaza on Monday, killing dozens and injuring more than 2,400 people protesting the Monday opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem.
As bodies fell on the border on what became the bloodiest day in Gaza since the 2014 war, US and Israeli officials celebrated the opening of the embassy.
Demonstrations have quieted so we’re closing down the live blog for now. Here is a summary of today’s events:
Gaza’s ministry of health reported 52 people were killed and more than 2,400 were injured during protests at the border between Gaza and Israel. There are six children and one paramedic among the dead, the ministry said.
United Nations human rights experts urged Israel to halt excessive force against Palestinian protesters and Amnesty International accused Israel of violating international law.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) insisted, however, that is was following protocol. The IDF said it killed three “terrorists” and struck five “terrorist targets.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military was acting in self-defense. “Every country has an obligation to defend its borders,” he wrote on Twitter.
Senior US officials, including president Donald Trump, have not mentioned the protests in communications celebrating the embassy opening. “Big day for Israel. Congratulations!” the president said on Twitter.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo also ignored the deadly protests, while declaring the US was committed to advancing peace between Israel and Palestine.
Foreign ministries in the UK, France and Egypt expressed concern about the the violence. UK prime minister Theresa May’s spokesperson said: “We urge calm and restraint to avoid actions destructive to peace efforts.”
Trump did not attend the embassy dedication ceremony, but his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, a senior advisor to the president, went in his place. Kushner made a rare public address and said the opening of the embassy was an acknowledgement of the truth that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
“I’m here because of our land that we want back. We have nothing to lose. Nobody cares about us. Why should we wait to die slowly?”
— 25-year-old Mohammed Nabieh, a descendant of refugees from a village near the Israeli city of Ashdod
Israeli forces have killed 41 Palestinians and wounded at least 900 in Gaza, health officials said, as troops fired bullets at residents protesting against the Monday opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem.
Tens of thousands turned out across the coastal enclave in what soon became the bloodiest day in Gaza since the 2014 war. Close to 40 of the casualties were critically injured and the dead included a 14-year-old boy, medics said.
The sky along the frontier was blackened with thick smoke as protesters lit tyres. Intermittent sniper fire was heard and crowds of protesters were seen rushing towards the fence.
Around 60 miles away in an affluent neighborhood of Jerusalem, Washington’s ambassador, David Friedman, stood on a stage painted with the US flag and welcomed a delegation of US and Israeli VIPs, including the president’s daughter, Ivanka.
Medics evacuate a Palestinian protester who was shot by Israeli snipers during protests inside the Gaza Strip, May 14, 2018. (photo: Mohammed Zaanoun / Activestills.org)
Read continuous updates from this blog written by independent Israeli and Palestinian journalists.
Prior to Monday, Israeli snipers had killed 49 Palestinians and wounded nearly 10,000 Palestinian protesters since the protests began. Among the wounded and killed were at least half a dozen journalists, including Yaser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hussein — both of whom were wearing jackets clearly marked “PRESS” when they were shot. There have been zero Israeli casualties.
7:10 pm
The Ministry of Health in Gaza says that that the number of Palestinians killed by Israel on the Gaza border has risen to 52.
5:30 pm
Gaza’s Ministry of Health is reporting that the number of Palestinians killed today by Israeli forces in Gaza has risen to 43.
4:40 pm
Israeli soldiers have killed 41 Palestinians and wounded 1,960, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
“We condemn unreservedly the Israeli government for their brutal, lethal and utterly unjustified actions on the Gaza border, and our thoughts are with all those Palestinians in Gaza whose loved ones have been killed or injured as a result.
“These actions are made all the worse because they come not as the result of a disproportionate over-reaction to one day’s protests, but as the culmination of six weeks of an apparently systemic and deliberate policy of killing and maiming unarmed protestors and bystanders who pose no threat to the forces at the Gaza border, many of them shot in the back, many of them shot hundreds of meters from the border, and many of them children.”
— Emily Thornberry MP, Britain’s Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary
Follow latest developments from The Guardian in this continuously updated page.
“Naming this square in honor of the president is our way of showing our love and respect for the president and the American people, who always stand by the side of Israel.”
— Jerusalem Mayor Nir Bakat
So thrilled was the mayor of Jerusalem that Donald Trump had recognized the city as the capital of Israel that he decided a fitting tribute of thanks –—naming a roundabout in honor of the US president.
“Jerusalem returns the love to Trump,” Nir Barkat wrote on Facebook on Tuesday, showing a picture of the traffic circle at the site where the new American embassy is due to be opened next week.
“We have decided that the square adjacent to the embassy in the capital will be called ‘United States Square — in honor of President Trump’,” he said in the Hebrew-language post.
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak to reporters before their meeting at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, May 22, 2017. (photo: Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
Netanyahu has convinced Trump that leaving the Iran deal protects Israel. But the US walk-out means a full-on Israel-Iran war in Syria now becomes far more likely.
The largest and most imminent threat to Israel’s security right now is not a nuclear Iran, but Iranian activity in Syria.
The entire world watched as President Donald Trump announced America’s exit from the Iran nuclear deal, and his re-imposition of the full range of sanctions on Iran.
While the British, French, and German governments made clear their strong preference that the US maintain the JCPOA, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not shy in his efforts to convince the White House of the wisdom of his opposite position.
Netanyahu’s unusual English-language prime time presentation on Israeli television last week of the intelligence collected by Israel about Iran’s previous efforts to build a nuclear weapon was almost certainly aimed at Trump, either in an effort to convince him to exit the deal, or to provide cover for him to do so.
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