Up to 40 dead in new Israeli atrocity

Scores of Palestinians have been shot dead in Gaza as Israel’s  declaration of independence was marked by a mass slaughter of protestors  gathered at the border.

 

Hundreds more were injured when Israeli snipers opened fire in a  confrontation that also took place as the new US embassy in Jerusalem  was being inaugurated, a statement of recognition for the Israeli  occupation of the city.

 

The dead is currently put at over 37 and includes a 14-year-old boy and  a wheelchair-bound Palestinian protestor. More than 500 others were  wounded by Israeli gunfire in an ongoing massacre.

 

Thousands of demonstrators had again gathered at the border to call for  the ‘Right to Return’ to their homes, setting fire to tyres and throwing  stones over the border boundary wall.

 

Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson condemned the “brutal and violent  actions” of the Israeli Defence Forces. Her party called on the Dublin  government to expel the Israel ambassador.

 

“What is happening is northing short of a massacre,” she said.

 

“It is long past the time the international community, and the European  Union in Particular, took action to oppose ongoing Israeli aggression  and oppression and acted to defend the rights of the people of  Palestine.”

 

Today’s massacre at the border is an escalation from similar atrocities  committed by Israel in recent weeks. It took place ahead of the ‘Day of  the Catastrophe’, or Nakba, the holocaust of 1948 when thousands or  Palestinian Arabs were killed and more than 700,000 were expelled from  their homes by Israeli forces.

 

Israel subsequently captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war  and annexed it in a move not recognised outside the US. The Israeli  government said today Ireland should now move its embassy to Jerusalem  also.

 

In traditional doublespeak, Israeli government spokeswoman Michal Maayan

said: “Moving embassies to Jerusalem isn’t stopping peace, it’s actually  helping peace because it’s helping the Palestinians realise that  Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish state of Israel and it helps them  realise a reality that’s very important to us to go further on.”

 

Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said Ireland would not be  moving its embassy to Jerusalem “unless and until there is a  comprehensive agreement on a broader peace process”.

 

He said it was unwise for the US to recognise Jerusalem as the capital  of Israel, because it was “inflaming an already very tense situation and  relationship between Palestinians and Israelis”.

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