THOUSANDS OF PALESTINIANS TAKE PART IN ANTI-TRUMP PROTESTS
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| A Palestinian demonstrator hurls stones towards Israeli troops during clashes at a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near the West Bank city of Nablus, December 29, 2017. REUTERS |
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.
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| A masked Palestinian demonstrator uses a slingshot to hurl stones towards Israeli troops during clashes at a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near the West Bank city of Nablus, December 29, 2017. REUTERS |
The spokeswoman said about 4,000 Palestinians across the West Bank and
Gaza, some throwing rocks and fire bombs and setting tires 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 militants fired rockets into Israel, drawing strikes by
Israeli tanks and aircraft.
The military said it targeted posts that belonged to Hamas, the
Islamist 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 Dec. 6, which reversed
decades of U.S. 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 recognized 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.
A U.N. General Assembly resolution passed on Dec. 21 rejected Trump’s
Jerusalem declaration. A total of 128 countries voted for the U.N. resolution.
Nine opposed it and 35 abstained. Twenty-one countries did not cast a vote.
News source :Reuters
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