No Gaza inquiry, Israeli defence minister says
April 2, 2018 by admin
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GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s defence minister rejected on Sunday calls for an inquiry into the killing of 15 Palestinians by the military during a Palestinian demonstration that turned violent on Friday at the Gaza-Israel border.
Hamas, the dominant Palestinian group in Gaza, said five of the dead were members of its armed wing. Israel said eight of the 15 belonged to Hamas, designated a terrorist group by Israel and the West, and two others came from other militant factions.
A tense calm descended on Sunday on the border area, where hundreds of Palestinians, a fraction of the tens of thousands who initially turned out, remained in tent encampments along the fenced 65-km (40-mile) border.
Organisers expect many to come back on Friday, when schools and businesses are closed for the Muslim sabbath, and rejoin the planned six-week protest pressing for right of return for refugees and their descendents to what is now Israel.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, have called for an independent investigation into Friday’s bloodshed.
Pope Francis, in an apparent reference to the events in Gaza in his Easter address, called for “reconciliation for the Holy Land, also experiencing in these days the wounds of ongoing conflict that do not spare the defenceless.”
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Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli defence minister, rejected criticism of Israel’s actions, saying soldiers along the Gaza frontier “deserve a medal” and did what was necessary to protect the border.
“As for a commission of inquiry – there won’t be one,” he told Israeli Army Radio.
The United States blocked a Kuwait-drafted U.N. Security Council statement on Saturday, diplomats said, that would have called for an independent investigation and urged restraint by all sides.
WOUNDED
In a Gaza hospital on Sunday, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy hit by Israeli gunfire on Friday said that when he approached the border fence with others in the crowd, he thought he would be safe as long as he did not touch the barrier or throw stones.
Hundreds had ignored calls by protest organisers and by the Israeli military to stay away from the frontier. The military said some of those who were shot had fired at soldiers, rolled burning tyres and hurled rocks and fire bombs toward the border.
“I was just standing there when I felt something hit my leg and it pushed me to the ground,” the boy, Bashar Wahdan, told Reuters, estimating his distance from the fence at 30 metres (yards). The bullet cut through blood vessels and broke a bone.
At his bedside, Bashar’s father said he had no idea his son had gone to the protest.
The Israeli military accused Hamas of “cynically exploiting women and children” by sending them to the fence. A Hamas spokesman called the allegations “lies aimed at justifying the massacres”.
On Saturday, Israeli troops using live ammunition and rubber bullets shot and wounded about 70 Palestinians among demonstrators at the border, Palestinian officials said. Witnesses said stones were thrown at the soldiers.
Doctors at Gaza’s crowded Shifa hospital said they were running out of medicine and other supplies.
The protest is scheduled to culminate on May 15, when Palestinians mark the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” when hundreds of thousands fled or were driven out of their homes in 1948, when the state of Israel was created. Israel has long ruled out any right of return, fearing it would lose its Jewish majority.
Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Maayan Lubell and Mark Potter
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Palestinians Seek Protection as Israel Blasts `Terrorist’ March
April 1, 2018 by admin
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Israeli and Palestinian leaders blamed each other for the deaths of at least 16 Palestinians who were part of a mass protest along the Gaza border, with each side lobbing threats of escalating the violence.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel was “fully responsible” for killing his countrymen on Friday, and a video appearing to show an unarmed teenager being gunned down by Israeli sniper fire circulated on Palestinian media.
The Israeli army argued that Gazan militants were using civilian protesters as cover as they fired at soldiers and tried to lay explosives near the border fence. The protest, which peaked at 30,000 participants on Friday and will run for the next six weeks, is “an organized terrorist operation,” the Israeli army said in a tweet on Saturday. Hamas said Friday that five of the dead were members of its military wing.
“What we saw yesterday were attempts to launch rockets, attempts to carry out live attacks, Molotov cocktails, attempts to set fire to the security fence, and a lot of terrorist activity,” the Israel Defense Force said in separate tweets. “Nothing was carried out uncontrolled; everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed. We are only interested in terrorists who are trying to disrupt Israeli life; we only act against them.”
Increased Force
The Israeli army warned that it would increase its response should the violence continue. Abbas said Palestinians needed international protection from Israel, and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for an independent inquiry into Friday’s deaths.
The protests come amid growing tensions over President Donald Trump’s December recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, as well as a yet-to-be-released U.S. peace plan that Abbas has already pledged to reject. Abbas severed all official Palestinian contact with the White House in December after Trump announced plans to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Hamas planned the protests against the Palestinian displacement resulting from Israel’s founding in 1948 to culminate with the date of U.S. embassy move. The demonstrations began Friday with tent camps set up a half-mile from Gaza’s 25-mile (40-kilometer) frontier with Israel. The climax is to come in mid-May with a mass march to the border, which Israel fears will become an attempt to breach its territory.
Protest Escalates
Hamas leaders presented the initiative as a peaceful effort, though they conceded that it could get out of hand. The army said riots broke out at five locations along the border. Palestinian eyewitnesses said that in one spot, about 90 people cut through the security fence and confronted soldiers, with many being shot in the legs. Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said 16 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,400 injured Friday, while another three Palestinians were hurt in continued skirmishes Saturday.
Violence against Israel has surged in recent weeks. Palestinians, who want the eastern part of Jerusalem as their own capital, have been storming the Gaza fence and planting bombs targeting Israeli soldiers, drawing retaliatory fire and air strikes. At least five Israelis have been killed in stabbing and car-ramming attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank in recent weeks.
‘Hostile March’
Jason Greenblatt, who is helping spearhead the U.S. peace effort, accused Hamas of instigating a “hostile march” to spark a confrontation.
“Hamas should focus instead on desperately needed improvements to the lives of Palestinians in Gaza instead of inciting violence against Israel that only increases hardship and undermines chances for peace,” Greenblatt tweeted.
Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, appearing at the tent camps Friday, presented the march as a rebuke to the U.S. peace effort and said it marks the beginning of the Palestinian return to all of what is now Israel.
“The Great March of Return is a message to Trump that his deal and all those who support it, that there is no concession on Jerusalem, no alternative to Palestine, and no solution but to return,” Haniyeh said. The Palestinians “will not agree to keep the ‘Right of Return’ only as a slogan.”
Israel views the demand for a mass return of Palestinians as a bid to eradicate Israel as a Jewish state.
The Gaza protests correspond with red-letter dates on the Palestinian calendar. Friday was “Land Day,” marking the 1976 killing of six Arab citizens by Israeli security forces during demonstrations against land expropriations. It’s also the beginning of the week-long Jewish Passover holiday.
The main march to the fence on May 15 will commemorate the Palestinian “Nakba,” or the catastrophe of their displacement at Israel’s founding. It takes place a day after the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem is slated to open, on the 70th anniversary of Israel’s independence. Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month that often sees a surge in Palestinian attacks, also begins May 15.
— With assistance by Yaacov Benmeleh