Israeli airstrikes target Gaza amid tensions after Trump's Jerusalem move

Two Palestinians were killed Saturday in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported, as tensions soared in the region after US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces said Israeli aircraft had targeted what it identified as four facilities belonging to Hamas -- the Palestinian Islamist group that controls Gaza -- early Saturday in response to rockets fired into southern Israel from Gaza.

The aircraft targeted two weapons manufacturing sites, a weapons warehouse and a military compound, according to an IDF news release.

The bodies of two Palestinian men aged 28 and 30 were found under rubble after the strikes, WAFA said, quoting the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

A 54-year-old Palestinian man also died late Friday from injuries sustained during an earlier Israeli airstrike in Gaza. The IDF said Israeli aircraft had struck a Hamas training compound and ammunition warehouse in Gaza.

A 30-year-old Palestinian man was shot and killed earlier Friday during clashes between protesters and Israeli security forces over Trump's controversial move. Both Palestinians and Israelis claim Jerusalem as their capital.

More than 300 people were injured Friday across the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, 50 of whom needed hospital treatment, the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Health said.

An Israeli army statement said what it called violent riots had broken out in about 30 locations across the West Bank and Gaza. The main disturbances in the West Bank were in Hebron, Al-Arroub, Tulkarm, Ramallah, Qalqilya and Nablus.

At least 49 people were also injured Thursday during protests over Trump's decision, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

Trump's decision Wednesday to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and commit to moving the US Embassy to the holy city has prompted international condemnation and sparked protests in countries around the globe, from Indonesia and Malaysia to Iraq, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt.

US envoy to UN defends Trump move

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley defended Trump's decision and criticized member countries for their treatment of Israel during an emergency UN Security Council meeting Friday.

She also said the US has credibility with both the Israelis and the Palestinians and that any peace agreement would likely be "signed on the White House lawn."

"The United States is not predetermining final status issues," Haley said.

"We remain committed to achieving a lasting peace agreement. We support a two-state solution if agreed to by the parties."

Several countries voiced their opposition to the US decision before Haley's comments, including France and Egypt.

Tillerson: Embassy move not imminent

Speaking Friday in Paris, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem "is not something that will happen this year, probably not next year."

He also said that Trump's decision did not "indicate any final status for Jerusalem," adding that the "final status would be left to the parties to negotiate and decide."

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas cast doubt on whether he will receive US VicePresident Mike Pence during a planned visit to the region later this month.

Speaking to broadcaster Al Jazeera, spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said: "Jerusalem is more important than Mike Pence -- we will not abandon Jerusalem just to receive Mike Pence."

Palestinians clash with Israeli troops ahead of ‘day of rage’ at Trump’s Jerusalem move

 

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers clashed Thursday in Jerusalem, Ramallah and other places in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with some demonstrators burning American flags and posters of President Trump a day after he sided with Israel by announcing U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as its capital.

But at nightfall, after the skirmishes died down, the region was bracing for worse.

More than 100 people were injured Thursday, according to the Palestine Red Crescent, despite the deployment of several extra battalions of Israeli troops. The critical test comes Friday, when larger demonstrations are expected as crowds leave mosques after the weekly noon prayers.

In Gaza, the Islamist movement Hamas urged its followers to ignite a third intifada, or uprising, against Israel. The Palestinian Authority called for a general strike. Shops were shuttered in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that he would move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and his declaration that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital reversed a decades-old U.S. policy. But the status of the city — holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews and struggled over for millennia — is a deeply charged issue that resonates beyond the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

The backlash rippled across the wider region, with hundreds of demonstrators gathering outside the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Jordan holding placards reading “Decision Rejected” and “No to U.S. arrogance.” Criticisms continued to flow in from governments in the Middle East, Europe and beyond, with U.S. friends and adversaries alike voicing disapproval and alarm.

Turkey’s president predicted that the region would ignite in a “ring of fire,” while European leaders reiterated their opposition to the policy, and 86-year-old Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu declared, “God is weeping.”

In Israel, the decision has been widely welcomed by politicians, who see it as long-overdue recognition of reality and of their historic claim to the city. Palestinians say it is a dangerous breach of U.N. resolutions and international law that ignores their right to a future capital in East Jerusalem. 

On the edge of the Palestinian city of Ramallah on Thursday, Israeli forces fired dozens of rounds of tear gas and stun grenades at hundreds of Palestinian protesters airing their anger over Trump’s statement, moving quickly to disperse the crowd.

“This will be bad,” said an ambulance driver in Ramallah as young men burned tires and pelted the soldiers with stones. Emergency vehicles ferried the injured away.

In some places, notably Gaza, protesters set fire to images of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and to U.S. and Israeli flags.

“Donald Trump said Jerusalem is for Israel, and I tell him, ‘No way, go to hell,’ ” said a 43-year-old woman in the crowd, a traditional Palestinian scarf wrapped around her face. “Jerusalem is for Palestine, forever,” said the woman, who declined to give her name.

“Trump made the wrong decision,” said Sarah Louay, 15, who was making her way toward the demonstration carrying a Palestinian flag. “We will raise our voices for Jerusalem.”

Clashes also erupted in East Jerusalem and at the border fence between Israel and Gaza. In Bethlehem, tear gas filled streets that were strung with festive lights for Christmas. At one of the main checkpoints between Jerusalem and Ramallah, soldiers fired sponge bullets at children throwing stones from behind metal trash containers.

The Israeli military reported that at least three projectiles were fired at its territory Thursday from Gaza but that two fell short and the third caused no damage.

In response, Israeli jets and tanks struck two Hamas military sites in Gaza, the Israeli army said in a statement. The army “holds Hamas responsible for hostile activity . . . against Israel from the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.

How long the demonstrations will last remains unclear. Some Palestinians said they felt emboldened after a perceived victory last summer that followed two weeks of protests over metal detectors installed at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called for a new uprising in the Palestinian territories and declared Friday a day of rage.

“Tomorrow should be a day of rage and the beginning of a broad movement for an uprising that I call the intifada of freedom of Jerusalem,” he said.

 

[Where would a U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem actually go?]

He called on the Palestinian Authority to halt security coordination with Israel and “enable the resistance in the occupied West Bank to respond to this blatant aggression.”

Israel’s army said it was preparing for an increase in violence in the coming days and had increased its strength in the West Bank, reinforcing its combat intelligence and territorial defense units. Israeli police said three people were arrested in connection with “disturbances” near Damascus Gate, a main portal for Jerusalem’s Old City. 

U.S. institutions in the region were also preparing for possible violent fallout. Reuters reported that the State Department sent a note to diplomats at the embassy in Tel Aviv with talking points to convey to Israeli officials.

“While I recognize that you will publicly welcome this news, I ask that you restrain your official response,” Reuters quoted the document, dated Dec. 6, as saying. “We expect there to be resistance to this news in the Middle East and around the world. We are still judging the impact this decision will have on U.S. facilities and personnel overseas.”

The State Department restricted travel for U.S. government employees in Jerusalem and the West Bank, warning U.S. citizens to avoid crowded areas.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the U.S. move would galvanize the Palestinian struggle for independence.

After Trump’s announcement, Abbas said the United States could no longer be a fair mediator in the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Eight of the U.N. Security Council’s 15 member countries called for an emergency meeting Friday on the matter.

Despite the note of caution from the State Department, the mood in Israel was buoyant, with government ministers and pundits declaring a diplomatic victory for the Jewish state and for Netanyahu.

Speaking at a Foreign Ministry conference in Jerusalem on Thursday, the prime minister heralded Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as a “historic statement.”

“President Trump has always linked himself to the history of our capital,” he said. “His name will now float along with other names in the context of the glorious history of Jerusalem and our people.”
Netanyahu said he has been in contact with other countries that are also ready to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“I have no doubt that as soon as the American Embassy moves to Jerusalem, and even before that, many embassies will move to Jerusalem,” he said. “It’s about time.”

Trump's Jerusalem decision hurts peace process,White House admits

President Donald Trump's decision Wednesday to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital has temporarily derailed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, two senior White House officials acknowledged after Trump's speech.

The question now for those officials: For how long?

"We're prepared for derailment -- temporary, I hope. Pretty sure it will be temporary," said a senior White House official, who acknowledged that the President's peace team has not spoken with furious Palestinian officials since the Trump's announcement.

You can also see Trump recognizes Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel

That "derailment" was a cost the White House was prepared to accept to fulfill Trump's campaign promise. And two senior White House officials said they felt making the announcement now -- before Israelis and Palestinians have reached the negotiating table -- would help mitigate the damage to the peace process.

"A lot of people put their heads into this decision to see how do we make this happen without at the same time throwing the peace process out of the window," one of the officials said.

"In terms of a moment where it could happen, where it could be the least disruptive at a moment in time, this is the moment," the second official said. "We know there will be some short term pain, but think it will help in the long run."

Trump's decision Wednesday to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and direct the State Department to begin moving the embassy there comes after months during which Trump's peace team has focused on meeting with Israelis and Palestinians, gathering ideas and building relationships. 

Now, the officials said, they are in the midst of drafting a tentative peace accord, but have yet to seek to draw both sides back to the negotiating table.

But the move left Palestinian officials fuming, with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his chief negotiator Saeb Erakat blasting the US decision and claiming Trump's move "disqualified" the US from mediating the peace process.

The White House officials expressed hope that the Trump administration has built enough trust with the Palestinians to push through the current friction, but could not say when they believed the relationship would be patched up.

Trump's announcement on Jerusalem, which bucked seven decades of US foreign policy, came amid a string of setbacks for Palestinians, including a threat from the State Department to close the Palestinian Liberation Organization's Washington office.

While Trump had previously expressed a desire to hold off on moving the embassy to gauge the prospects for peace, the officials said Trump decided to move forward with the announcement because it will take months before US officials know if the current process -- led by the President's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt -- is likely to bear fruit.

And while senior administration officials have expressed hope that the move could help facilitate the peace process, two senior White House officials acknowledged Wednesday that that was not a central goal.

"His decision wasn't meant to help (the peace team). It was meant to do what he chose to do, but it was also meant to respect his other goal which is to reach a historic peace agreement," one senior White House official said.

Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's Capital

US President Donald Trump

President Donald Trump told Israeli and Arab leaders on Tuesday that he intends to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a decision that breaks with decades of US policy and risks fueling violence in the Middle East. Senior U.S. officials said Trump on Wednesday is expected to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital while delaying relocating the embassy from Tel Aviv for another six months, though he plans to order his aides to immediately begin planning such a move. US endorsement of Israel’s claim to all of Jerusalem as its capital would reverse long-standing U.S. policy that the city’s status must be decided in negotiations with the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the entire city, home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, who all received telephone calls from Trump, joined a mounting chorus of voices warning that unilateral US steps on Jerusalem would derail a fledgling US-led peace effort and unleash turmoil in the region.click here for more.

The White House said that Trump had also spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime proponent of a US embassy move to Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but a senior Israeli minister welcomed Trump’s decision while vowing that Israel would be prepared for any outbreak of violence. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said that Trump, who promised during the presidential campaign to move the embassy in Israel, would give a speech on Wednesday about his Jerusalem decision. “The president I would say is pretty solid in his thinking at this point,” she said, declining to provide details. Trump notified Abbas “of his intention to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said.

Abbas, in response, “warned of the dangerous consequences such a decision would have to the peace process and to the peace, security and stability of the region and of the world” and also appealed to the Pope and the leaders of Russia, France and Jordan to intervene. The Jordanian monarch, whose dynasty is the custodian of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, told Trump that moving the embassy would have “dangerous repercussions” for the region and would obstruct U.S. efforts to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, according to a palace statement.

King Salman stressed to Trump that any U.S. announcement on the status of Jerusalem would “inflame Muslim feelings all over the world,” the Saudi Press Agency said. None of the leaders’ statements said whether Trump specified the timing of an embassy move, a notion supported by successive governments in Israel, a close U.S. ally.

But U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump was expected to sign a national security waiver – as have his predecessors – keeping the embassy in Tel Aviv for another six months but would commit to setting the move in motion. However, he was not planning to set a specific timetable, the officials said. The Trump administration would need time to overcome logistical issues such as lack of a secure embassy building and staff housing in Jerusalem, according to one U.S. official.

Trump appears intent on satisfying the pro-Israel, right-wing base, including evangelical Christians, that helped him win the presidency but was disappointed when he delayed the embassy move in June. No other country has its embassy in Jerusalem. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed it, an action not recognized internationally.

‘A BIG MISTAKE’

Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz, who met last week with U.S. officials in Washington, told Israel’s Army Radio: “My impression is that the president will recognize Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years, as the capital of the state of Israel.” Asked whether Israel was preparing for a wave of violence if Trump recognizes Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, he said: “We are preparing for every option. Anything like that can always erupt. If Abu Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) will lead it in that direction then he will be making a big mistake.”

Islamist militant groups such as al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah have in the past tried to exploit Muslim sensitivities over Jerusalem to stoke anti-Israel and anti-U.S. sentiment. Asked whether Trump recognized that his Jerusalem decision could spark violence, Sanders said: “A number of things have been looked at that have been weighed into the president’s decision.”

Senior U.S. officials told Reuters some officers in the State Department were also deeply concerned and the European Union, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League all warned that any such declaration would have repercussions across the region. Turkey threatened on Tuesday to cut diplomatic ties with Israel if Trump recognizes Jerusalem.

Katz took to Twitter to reject Turkey’s threat and reiterate Israel’s position on the city, which is one of a long list of stumbling blocks in years of failed peace talks with the Palestinians. A U.S. official said the consensus U.S. intelligence estimate on U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was that it would risk triggering a backlash against Israel, and also potentially against U.S. interests in the Middle East.
It is also likely to upset an Israeli-Palestinian peace push led by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, in pursuit of what the U.S. president has called the “ultimate deal.” The initiative has made little progress. Read Turkey joins US allies in warning Trump over Jerusalem.

The White House said in a statement that in calls with Israeli and Arab leaders, Trump “reaffirmed his commitment to advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks” and “underscored the importance of bilateral cooperation with each partner.” Arab criticism of Trump’s plan contrasted sharply with the praise Washington’s traditional Arab allies heaped on him at the beginning of his administration. They saw Trump as re-engaging in the region after what they perceived as former President Barack Obama’s distancing of himself from them, as well as taking a tougher stand against Iran.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, said on Tuesday that “any action that would undermine” peace efforts to create two separate states for the Israelis and the Palestinians “must absolutely be avoided.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has “consistently warned against any unilateral action that would have the potential to undermine the two-state solution,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

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