Our live coverage has ended. Scroll through the posts below to read about the protests.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday that “Israel will protect its security interests,” adding that “no country is prepared to allow threats against its sovereignty,” according to a readout of the statement from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
In a separate message, an Élysée Palace source in France said that on the call, Macron expressed his concerns with the situation in Gaza.
He condemned the violence and stressed “the importance of protecting the civilian population and the right to demonstrate peacefully.”
Macron also reaffirmed “the importance of dialogue to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process,” the Élysée source said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States of “contributing to the conflict” and of encouraging Israel’s violent actions.
“With this endeavor the US not only ignored the resolutions of the UN and international law but also refrained from playing the mediating role in the settlement of the dispute between two countries and instead the US introduced itself as contributing to the conflict,” Erdogan said at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May in London on Tuesday.
Erdogan went on to say that just because Israel was stronger, it doesn’t mean it was right.
“Israel in our point of view is not right and Israel is an occupant power,” he said.
Erdogan continued: “Israel is the occupant of a vast land. This is unacceptable.”
Two Palestinians have been killed in clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops around the fence that separates Gaza and Israel, the Palestinian Ministry of Health says. 160 people have been injured, the Ministry says.
On Monday at least 60 people, including eight children, were killed during clashes along the border fence between Israel and Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch, just sent the following statement after the US blocked a United Nations Security Council action on Gaza.
Palestinians shot down an Israeli tear gas drone moments after tear gas was released, CNN video shows. The footage captured the drone coming down and Palestinians cheering as it hit the ground. This was in Gaza.
Here’s the clip:
The Palestinian government says Israel and the US should bear the “responsibility for the loss of lives” and the “brutal massacre” in Gaza.
The government, which held its weekly meeting Tuesday, called for the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the “crimes committed by Israeli armed forces against the Palestinians”.
The government also criticized Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Austria for participating in the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her “concerns about the escalation of violence” in Gaza, in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, her spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.
According to Seibert, Merkel also told Netanyahu she understands “the security concerns of Israel”.
“The right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly should not be abused to provoke unrest”, his statement reads. “Violence should not be a means to enforce political goals”.
The German Chancellor also addressed the Iran nuclear deal, stressing that Germany, the UK and Britain are ‘’bound by the nuclear agreement with Iran as long as Iran continues to honour its obligations under the agreement’’.
Both leaders have expressed their concern about Iran’s ballistic missile program, as well as Iran’s destabilizing role in the region.
The statement concluded that Merkel condemned the recent Iranian attacks on Israeli military positions on the Golan Heights.
The British government will support an investigation into the use of force by the Israeli military against Palestinian protesters at the Gaza border fence, a UK Foreign Office official told the House of Commons Tuesday.
Alistair Burt, the Minister of State for the Middle East at the Foreign Office, said the UK was working “urgently” with the UN towards an inquiry into Israeli violence towards Palestinian protesters, which has so far left 60 dead, including eight children.
“The United Kingdom has been clear in calling for, urgently, a need to establish the facts of what happened, including why such a volume of live fire was used. We are supportive of an independent, transparent investigation,” Burt told members of parliament Tuesday.
A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces said around 1,300 Palestinians were taking part in what he described as “violent riots” in 18 locations across the West Bank on Tuesday.
Another 400 protesters were currently assembled in seven locations across Gaza, according to IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, who said that no unusual events had occurred thus far.
“The rules of engagement and the mission have not changed,” Conricus told reporters.
“Our mission is to defend and we will continue to defend. We will continue to warn Palestinians ahead in Arabic through mass media, through leaflets, and through loudspeakers on the fence telling them, ‘Do not come close to the fence.’”
The clashes come on a day Palestinians call “The Catastrophe” or “Nakba,” in memory of the more than 700,000 Palestinians who were driven from or left their homes during the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli war.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN has claimed that Iran is supporting the protests in Gaza.
“We do have an indication of Iranian funding into Hamas, we have indication of connection between Hamas and Hezbollah,” Danny Danon told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday, though he declined to divulge further details.
“We know that the riots are well organized, well-funded, well-orchestrated by Hamas, and we do have that information. I hope in the future we can reveal more of that information, but I can say to you today that Iran is supporting the riots in Gaza.”
Hamas is the militant group that runs Gaza; Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed Shiite political and militant group in Lebanon.
Israel’s ambassador to Turkey has been told to leave the country “for a period of time,” the Turkish foreign ministry said Tuesday, in the latest diplomatic spat between the two countries over Ankara’s opposition to the US Embassy move to Jerusalem.
Eitan Naeh was summoned to the Turkish foreign ministry, where he was also informed of Turkey’s decision to recall its ambassador to Israel, the statement added.
Turkey withdrew its ambassadors to the US and Israel on Monday night in protest over the US Embassy relocation, according to state media.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said Israel has acted with “restraint” during the protests along the Gaza border.
Haley spoke at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council this morning. The meeting comes one day after the Gaza Strip experienced its deadliest day of violence since 2014, with Israeli forces killing at least 60 people in clashes at the border.
Watch more:
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Tuesday that at least 28 of those killed in Gaza on Monday had a “documented terror background.”
An IDF spokesman said that most of the 28 were “active operatives of the Hamas terror organization, and some are active operatives of the Islamic Jihad.”
Israel has blamed the latest wave of protests in Gaza on Hamas, the militant group that controls the territory.
Palestinians and Israeli forces clashed in Bethlehem on Tuesday. These photos show the scene of today’s events.
Earlier Tuesday, CNN’s Kareem Khadder reported that tear gas and rubber bullets had been used by Israeli forces in Bethlehem as Palestinians threw stones.
Turkish health minister Ahmet Demircan said Tuesday that his country is ready to receive patients from Gaza who are badly wounded or in critical condition if an agreement can be reached.
“We will first bring the wounded from Gaza to Ankara then depending on their conditions we have prepared hospitals,” he told Turkish broadcaster TRT.
“Because there isn’t enough medical supplies and medicine on the Gaza side where the Palestinians are the wounded [and] are under grave risk.”
All the shops are closed for three days as Palestinians across Gaza mourn their dead.
Social media is awash with stories and photos of those who have died. It appears that nearly every neighborhood has lost somebody, and there is constant chatter on the streets of casualties.
The protests in Gaza are much smaller Tuesday. While mosques had called on people to head towards the border with Israel on Monday, today it was quiet.
“It’s enough death. Those who died, it’s enough,” said Mahmoud Yasser Mohammed, a demonstrator who stayed at the camps overnight.
“All the youth are just coming down to take selfies. There is no point. We cut the fence and opened the way and everyone was too scared to cross, and the Israelis started firing on us,” another demonstrator, Sayed Abu Nada, told CNN.
The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss the ongoing situation in Gaza and the wider Middle East.
What to expect
Nickolay Mladenov, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, is expected to speak during the session, Britain’s Ambassador to the UN Karen Pierce told reporters Monday.
Speaking outside Security Council Chamber yesterday, Pierce said:
David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, said Tuesday he was “honored” to formally open the US Embassy in Jerusalem on Monday.
He tweeted: “The United States Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel is now open, Thank God. I am so honored to have executed the direction and vision of our great President. Like the Ten Commandments, the words on the Embassy are written in stone!”
Dr. Srihari Cattamanchi, who works in Gaza with the Red Cross, described the scenes as injured Palestinians flooded into his hospital on Monday.
“Within the first four hours we had more than 400 patients who came in injured. We spent most of the time trying to control and stop the bleeding,” he said.
“If we receive more patients, how are we going to take care of them? Doctors are overworked. Nurses are overworked. We are running out of stock.”
