Violence escalates following protest deaths
Palestinian anger has reached a new high over the past few days, after a wheelchair-bound protester was killed during clashes with Israeli security forces.
PALESTINIAN anger has reached a new high over the past few days, after a wheelchair-bound protester was killed during clashes with Israeli security forces.
The death of Ibrahim Abu Thurayya, 29, has given the Palestinians protesting Donald Trump’s Jerusalem policy a new rallying cry, and his image is going viral on Arabic-language social media.
He is being described as an angel – and in many posts and media articles depicted as one too.
Palestinian sources say that Abu Thurayya was one of four Palestinians who were killed in clashes with Israel last weekend – clashes that also left an Israeli police officer moderately wounded when stabbed in the West Bank. He had been protesting along the Gaza-Israel border.
Abu Thurayya’s funeral drew huge crowds and turned in to a galvanising event for anti-Israel violence. “With his death there is no valid excuse not to fight,” said Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.
The riots that broke out with Trump’s December 6 announcement that he recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and plans to move the US embassy there continue are still underway.
As The AJN went to press, riots were expected to intensify as US Vice-President Mike Pence was due to arrive for a visit.
Since the Jerusalem declaration, Palestinians have been claiming additional grievances against the Trump administration.
On Monday, Trump gave a security speech in which he said that Israel is not the cause of the Middle East’s problems.
And a Trump official has been quoted as being unable to “envision a scenario” under which the Western Wall would not be Israeli after a peace deal.
While virtually every Western leader shares this position, the Palestinians say that they see the Kotel as occupied because it was captured by Israel during the Six Day War.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cancelled his meeting with Pence by way of protest over the initial Jerusalem statement, and his political party, Fatah, called for popular displays of anger.
“We call for angry protests at the entrances to Jerusalem and in its Old City to coincide with the visit,” it said in a statement.”
Gaza militants have been flexing their muscles, launching more than 12 rockets towards Israel since the Trump announcement.
And while rockets often fall in open regions, there have been strikes in residential areas, including the entrance to a kindergarten and, on Sunday, a home near Ashkelon.
The home was damaged but nobody was hurt.
In the West Bank also, there have been terror attempts.
On Sunday, police scuppered an attack by detaining a Palestinian man who tried to make his way in to an Israeli court in the West Bank with two pipe bombs.
The Palestinians’ allies in the international community are upping the ante against Trump’s declaration.
Muslim countries asked the United Nations on Monday to use its power to get an “annulment” of Trump’s position.
The Security Council resolution, drafted by Egypt, affirmed “that any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void, and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council.”
The resolution also called on UN member states to “refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Holy City of Jerusalem, pursuant to resolution 478 (1980) of the Security Council.”
The US vetoed the draft resolution, prompting praise from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Trump and America’s ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley.
“Thank you, Ambassador Haley. On Chanukah, you spoke like a Maccabi,” he said. “You lit a candle of truth. You dispel the darkness. One defeated the many. Truth defeated lies. Thank you, President Trump. Thank you, Nikki Haley.”
NATHAN JEFFAY
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