Palestinians Aim Pipe Bombs, Molotov Cocktails at IDF Troops During Clashes on Gaza Border
Written by TPS on May 14, 2018
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman signed off on an IDF request late Monday to reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. The move comes at the end of a day during which tens of thousands of Palestinians rioted at 13 locations along the Gaza-Israel border Monday, charging the border fence and attacking IDF troops with gun fire, pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails.
In addition, Palestinians flew 25 kites into Israeli territory, including 17 that had been doused with flammable material, igniting 23 brush fires.
Fifty-two Palestinians were killed and well over 1,000 wounded in the clashes. Israel Air Force aircraft attacked at least a dozen Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip in response to the attacks, and a senior security official told the Hebrew-language Hadashot News that Israel would resume it’s policy of assassinating Hamas leaders if the protests, which have been going on weekly since the end of March, don’t stop.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and other Israeli officials praised IDF troops for preventing the protesters from entering Israel and placed the blame for the violence squarely on Hamas shoulders.
“The responsibility for the killing on the Gaza border lies solely with Hamas, which sends women and children to serve as human shields and uses them as bullet-proof vests to guard their murderous activities,” said Hotovely.
In response to the violence, Turkish media reported that Ankara and South Africa recalled their ambassadors to Israel, and Turkey recalled its ambassador to the United States Monday in response to the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem. Turkey declared three days of mourning for the Palestinians who died during the clashes with IDF soldiers, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Pretoria, South Africa said that Ambassador Sisa Ngombane would return home indefinitely.
“(Israel) should bring to an end the violent and destructive incursions into Palestinian territories,” a ministry statement said, going on to condemn Israel for “routine (military) actions… (which) present yet another obstacle to a permanent resolution to the conflict, which must come in the form of two states, Palestine and Israel, existing side-by-side and in peace.”