Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
broken clouds
weather
OMAN
23°C / 23°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Thousands of Palestinians take part in anti-Trump protests

1208510
1208510
minus
plus

GAZA: Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza and the occupied West Bank for the fourth Friday in a row in protests against US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Palestinian health officials said at least 20 protesters were wounded by live fire, mostly along the Gaza border. An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers had shot at “main instigators” who posed a direct threat to the troops and who were trying to damage the border security fence.


The spokeswoman said about 4,000 Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza, some throwing rocks and fire bombs and setting tyres alight, confronted Israeli soldiers who responded mainly by firing tear gas.


In Gaza, demonstrators chanted “Death to America, death to Israel, and death to Trump” and activists fired rockets into Israel, drawing strikes by Israeli tanks and aircraft.


The military said it targeted posts that belonged to Hamas, the group that controls the Palestinian enclave, after intercepting two of the three rockets fired into Israel. Police said the third struck a building, causing damage. No casualties were reported in those incidents.


Trump outraged Palestinians and sparked anger in the Middle East and among world powers with his Jerusalem declaration on December 6, which reversed decades of US policy on one of the most sensitive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.


Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital. Palestinians want the capital of an independent Palestinian state to be in the city’s eastern sector, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed in a move never recognised internationally.


Most countries regard the status of Jerusalem as a matter to be settled in an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, although that process is now stalled. — Reuters


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon