Gaza: A Palestinian was shot dead by the Israeli occupation regime on Tuesday amid renewed protests on the Gaza Strip border. This came as Palestinians rallied in Gaza on Tuesday for the funerals of at least 60 people massacred by soldiers of the Israeli occupation regime on Monday. On the Gaza-Israel border, the regime forces took up positions on the final day of a Palestinian protest campaign. Palestinians were also gathering Tuesday for fresh protests along the Gaza border.
The UN Security Council met Tuesday to discuss the massacre, beginning with a moment of silence for those killed.
Monday’s Israeli massacre, which took place as the US opened its new embassy in occupied Jerusalem, was the bloodiest for Palestinians since Israel’s war on Gaza in 2014.
The death toll rose to 61 overnight after an eight-month-old baby died from tear gas she inhaled at a protest camp. 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.
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. US ambassador to UN Nikki Haley said the Israeli regime had acted with ‘restraint’ in Gaza.
French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the violence against Palestinian demonstrators in a statement released late on Monday and reiterated his opposition to the move of the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem.
“[Macron] lamented the large number of Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza [on Monday] and over the past few weeks,” the French presidency said.
UN security council members Russia and China also expressed their concern. Turkey also said it was expelling Israel’s ambassador, and recalling its ambassadors to the US and Israel “for consultations”, while South Africa recalled its ambassador to Israel “until further notice”. Britain and Germany called for an independent probe into the massacre. As senior UN rights officials condemned the killings as an “outrageous human rights violation” while Ireland summoned Israel’s ambassador to protest against the fatalities.
Israel’s use of force is akin to “an eye for an eyelash” and may amount to a war crime, Michael Lynk, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Territories said in a statement on Tuesday.
“This blatant excessive use of force by Israel an eye for an eyelash must end, and there must be true accountability for those in military and political command who have ordered or allowed this force to be once again employed at the Gaza fence,” said Lynk, an independent expert who reports to the UN Human Rights Council.
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 by Jewish terrorist groups, in violence culminating in war between the newly created Zionist state and its Arab neighbours 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.
Palestinian medical officials say that 114 Gazans have now died since the start of the protests on March 30. No Israeli casualties have been reported.
In Geneva, the UN human rights office condemned what it called the “appalling deadly violence” by Israeli regime forces and said it was extremely worried about what might happen later.
More than 2 million people are crammed into the narrow Gaza Strip, which is blockaded by Egypt and Israel and suffering a humanitarian crisis.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered a general strike across the Occupied Territories on Tuesday and three days of national mourning.
Monday’s protests were fired by the opening ceremony for the new US Embassy in occupied Jerusalem following its relocation from Tel Aviv.
Palestinians envision occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they hope to establish in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Most countries say the status of occupied 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.
Palestinians have said the United States 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.
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.
