Israeli forces shot and killed at least 52 people along its border fence with Gaza on Monday, the Palestinian authorities said, as tens of thousands protested against the inauguration of the US embassy in Jerusalem.
More than 1,200 people were wounded, the Gaza health ministry said, as Israel deployed two extra brigades to join at least 100 snipers and other troops along the frontier with the strip.
Protesters burnt tyres, sending huge plumes of black smoke into the sky, and threw stones and brandished knives at Israeli soldiers, including snipers perched on earthworks. Some groups of young men sought to breach the border fence.
Monday’s death toll was the biggest in a single day since the Hamas-led protests began in March in the build-up to this week’s 70th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel.
Lt Col Jonathan Conricus, spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said the army had witnessed an “unprecedented” level of violence directed at the fence. He described three “terror” squads trying to plant explosives near the border. He added that militants with Hamas, which controls the hemmed-in, impoverished strip, blended into the crowd and attempted to infiltrate the frontier.
The Israeli air force flew at least two sorties inside Gaza and attacked military targets unrelated to the protests, he said. Lt Col Conricus rejected the suggestion that those shot were demonstrators. “These are masses that are full of hatred and incitement that are launching themselves at the fence,” he said.
At the embassy opening in Jerusalem, US officials, including Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, mingled with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other dignitaries as a musician sang a Hebrew version of “Hallelujah”.
In a recorded video clip peppered with biblical references, Mr Trump said: “Israel is a sovereign nation, with the right like every other sovereign nation to determine its own capital”.
He added: “The plain reality is that Israel’s capital is Jerusalem. Today we follow through on this recognition and open our embassy on this sacred land of Jerusalem.”
A triumphant Mr Netanyahu thanked the US president.
“We are in Jerusalem and we are here to stay,” the Israeli leader said. “What a glorious day — remember this day. This is history.”
Mr Trump’s decision this year to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel reversed decades of US policy and drew criticism from Europe and Washington’s main Arab allies.
The status of the holy city is one of the most contested issues in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and critics of Mr Trump’s say it undermines the US’s role as the Middle East’s broker and dashes hopes of a two-state solution.
His administration decided to open the new US embassy in Jerusalem on the day of Israel’s 70th anniversary despite warnings that it would inflame Palestinian anger at the contentious move.
The Palestinian leadership had called for a boycott of the embassy opening and the severing of all official contact with Washington.
The opening of the embassy coincides with the annual commemoration of what Palestinians call the Nakba — the catastrophe — which led to tens of thousands of Arab residents of the British Mandate of Palestine losing their homes in 1948. More than 40 Palestinians had been killed in the demonstrations in Gaza before they escalated on Monday.
Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator for the moribund peace process, said the US decision promoted “international anarchy”.
“This infamous hostile act against international law and hostile act against international law and against the people of Palestine places the US on the side of the occupying power, Israel, which continues to oppress the Palestinian people and to colonise their lands towards destroying the very possibility of reaching a just, comprehensive and lasting peace,” he said. Thousands of additional members of the police patrolled East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after the 1967 Six-Day .