Israel Opens Fire on Protesters (Video)

As many as 13 are dead and scores more injured after Israeli forces shot at protesters Sunday. Crowds gathered near the borders of Gaza, Lebanon and Syria to condemn the founding of Israel. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said of the dead, “Their blood will not go to waste.”

Speaking on television, Abbas added, “Right is stronger than time, and the will of people is stronger than the power of the oppressive forces and the occupiers.”

In his own televised address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped for calm, but “Let nobody be mistaken, we are determined to defend our borders and sovereignty.”

An Israeli brigadier general, rather than apologize for killing civilians, blamed Iran, describing the protests as “an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations.”

According to Ynetnews, about 100 Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv to express sympathy for the Palestinians, calling the Israel Defense Forces a “terror organization.” They were pelted with eggs.  —PZS

Sources: Reuters, BBC, Ha’aretz, Ynetnews

AP / Mohammed Zaatari

Palestinian protesters take cover after Israeli soldiers opened fire at them during a rally marking the day of nakba (catastrophe), the term used by Palestinians to describe the uprooting they suffered at the time of Israel’s founding on May 15, 1948.