Thousands of Palestinians participated in dozens of funerals in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, a day after 60 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces during mass protests along the border.
Mourners chanted “God is great” in Arabic and “Death to Israel” as they marched the bodies, many of them wrapped in flags to signify political affiliation, to the cemeteries.
“What was her fault, she went to the [protest] camps to watch, and while she was watching, she was killed,” said Faddel Khalil, father of 15-year-old girl Wissal Khalil, who was shot dead on Monday.
The funerals came as Palestinians observe their “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” marking the creation of Israel in 1948.
Monday’s protest – fuelled by a controversial US embassy move to Jerusalem and the Nakba commemoration – ended in the bloodiest day in Gaza since a 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.
Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been overstretched by the more than 2,700 people injured, including 1,300 by gun fire, UN agencies warned in Geneva.
The World Health Organization said that Israel’s long-lasting blockade of Gaza had created chronic shortages in Palestinian health facilities.
“This month, two in every five essential drugs are completely depleted and half have less than a month’s supply remaining,” spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.
For weeks, Palestinians – some throwing stones, explosives, and burning tires – have been squaring off against Israeli army snipers along the Gaza border. Groups of mostly young men push towards the border fence in an attempt to break it down, while the army uses tear gas and live fire in response.
Protesters are demanding an end to Israel’s over decade-long blockade of the Strip and a return to lands owned by Palestinians prior to 1948, but now in present-day Israel.
As of Tuesday afternoon protests along the border had abated, although the Israeli army said it bombed 11 Hamas targets earlier in the day.
The Israeli army says that Hamas, the Islamist group which much of the West considers a terrorist organization, is using the mask of protests to break down the border fence and carry out a “mass infiltration into Israel” and ultimately attack Israeli border communities.
The army has defended its actions, saying its soldiers were following “standard operating procedures” to push back Palestinians seeking to break through the border barrier.
But the UN Human Rights Office on Tuesday said that Israel was not within its rights when it used bullets against protestors.
“An attempt to approach or crossing or damaging the fence do not amount to a threat to life or serious injury and are not sufficient grounds for the use of live ammunition,” UNHCR spokesman Rupert Colville told a press conference.
As international criticism rains in over Israel’s use of force on the border, Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said her country should not fear a war crimes investigation.
“We do not have anything to fear Israeli soldiers work very great, acting according to procedures of open fire,” she said on army radio.
“War is not a nice thing and terrorist acts are not a nice thing,” she added.
In Gaza, the health system hit its limits by the huge influx of injuries.
“It is unbearable to witness such a massive number of unarmed people being shot in such a short time,” said Marie-Elisabeth Ingres, the head of Doctors Without Border in Palestine.
But Hamas, which rules over nearly 2 million people in Gaza, blamed US President Donald Trump for the violence.
The embassy move, first announced in December, triggered international condemnation and further angered Palestinians who want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after he denounced a “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.
“Erdogan is one of the great supporters of Hamas, and thus there is no doubt that he understands well terror and massacre. I suggest that he not preach morality to us,” Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to Hamas.
The West Bank-based Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for three days of mourning and a general strike in response to Monday’s violence.
The UN Security Council was due to meet later Tuesday to discuss the situation in Gaza. The United States on Monday blocked the adoption of a joint UN Security Council statement calling for an independent investigation into the violence, a diplomat told dpa.
Ahead of the meeting, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in China – a permanent member of the Security Council – “urged the Palestinians and Israelis, especially the Israeli side, to exercise restraint and avoid further tensions and escalation.”
dpa