News Release

As U.S. Moves Embassy, Israel Massacres Palestinians

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U.S. and Israeli officials today celebrated of the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem exactly 70 years after Israel declared its independence. Jared Kushner, senior advisor to his father-in-law, Donald Trump, is reportedly working on a “peace plan.” He said at the embassy opening: “those provoking violence are part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

Sharif Abdel Kouddous (@sharifkouddous) reports on “Democracy Now!” from Gaza that Israeli attacks on nonviolent protests there have resulted in at least 37 Palestinians killed today. He adds that medical personnel are now reporting that Israel is using fragmentation ammunition, which breaks up on impact, resulting in gun wounds as large as fists. Israeli soldiers are “picking people off with sniper fire.” Kouddous also reports on the Palestinian resistance using kites and balloons and how it is setting fire to tires in an attempt to block the view of the Israeli snipers who are targeting people.

See updates from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. See coverage at ElectronicIntifada.net and the piece there “The future of the Nakba,” by Joseph Massad, a professor at Columbia University.

Protests may well accelerate tomorrow as Palestinians commemorate the Nakba or catastrophe of hundreds of thousands of them being driven from their homes by pro-Israeli forces.

NBC News reports: “At least 90 demonstrators have been killed and 11,500 wounded by Israel forces during protests since March 30, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. … No Israelis have been killed or injured.”

See @accuracy Twitter list on Israel-Palestine. The writer Naomi Dann tweets: “Israel is carrying out a massacre against Palestinian protesters barricaded in Gaza while U.S. officials celebrate occupation in Jerusalem. Everyone should be outraged.”

NOOR HARAZEEN, [in Gaza] updatefromgaza at gmail.com
Harazeen is a Palestinian journalist and a TV correspondent for CGTN and teleSUR.

MAZIN QUMSIYEH, mazin at qumsiyeh.org, Skype: mbqumsiyeh
Qumsiyeh has been on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke, and Yale Universities. He is now a professor at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. His books include Popular Resistance in Palestine and Sharing the Land of Canaan. He is founding director of the Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability.

JOE CATRON, [in NYC] joecatron at gmail.com, @jncatron
Catron lived in Gaza for several years as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement. He is now U.S. coordinator of Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

Additional background:

See: “Trump Bows to Neocons, Netanyahu,” from Gareth Porter, and from “Flashpoints”: “The Israel-gate Side of Russia-gate.”