The Fatah faction of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on
Saturday called for demonstrations next week when US Vice President Mike
Pence visits Jerusalem, after Washington's policy shift on the holy
city.
US President Donald Trump announced on December 6
his decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital and that he
would move the US embassy to the city. The move has stirred global
condemnation and sparked angry protests across Arab and Muslim
countries, as well as deadly clashes in the occupied territories between
Palestinians and Israeli forces.
It also prompted Abbas
to cancel a meeting with Pence, who arrives on Wednesday in Jerusalem,
and warn that Washington no longer had a role to play in the
Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
Fatah called for a day
of “protests” on Wednesday near Jerusalem and the Old City “against the
visit of the American vice president and Trump's decision” to recognise
Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a statement said.
The
status of Jerusalem is one of the most controversial issues in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel seized control of the eastern part
of the city in the 1967 Middle East war and sees the whole of Jerusalem
as its undivided capital. The Palestinians view the east as the capital
of their future state.
The call to protest came as
thousands of Palestinians took part in funerals for two of four men
killed on Friday in clashes with Israeli forces during protests in the
West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.
Mourners chanted
anti-Trump slogans and masked men fired into the air during one of the
ceremonies in the village of Beit Ula, located between Jerusalem and the
occupied West Bank.
Funerals were also held for the two
other Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, where the enclave's
Hamas rulers had on Friday called for a “day of rage”.
One
of those killed was Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh, a Palestinian who lost his
legs in an Israeli attack a decade ago, who, with his wheelchair, was a
regular feature at protests along Gaza's border with Israel.
Egypt opens Gaza border for four days
Egypt opened its largely sealed border with Gaza on Saturday
for only the second time since the Palestinian Authority took control
of the crossing from the territory's rulers Hamas.
The
Hamas-run interior ministry, which was organising departures from the
southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis, said the crossing would stay
open for four days but, in the Egypt direction, for humanitarian cases
only. Those include people needing medical treatment unavailable in Gaza
as well as students enrolled at Egyptian universities and Gazans with
jobs abroad.
There were tearful scenes at the makeshift departure point as families said their farewells.
Rafah is Gaza's only border crossing not controlled by Israel.
Hamas
handed control of the Gaza side to the West Bank-based Palestinian
Authority on November 1 as the first part of an Egyptian-brokered
reconciliation deal designed to end a bitter decade-long split. That was
supposed to have been followed by the handover of full civil control in
Gaza by December 1. But the target date was missed amid differences
over the future of tens of thousands of civil servants recruited by
Hamas since it seized control of the territory in 2007.
Egypt
opened the border for three days last month — the first time it had
done so since the reconciliation deal. Prior to that, the crossing had
been open for just 14 days this year, according to the Hamas-run
interior ministry.
Some 200 people passed through on
Saturday morning, 10 of them were medical cases, the ministry said. Both
Israel and Egypt have maintained blockades of Gaza for years, arguing
that they are necessary to isolate Hamas.
