The Palestinian Authority government and its leading Fatah faction announced a “protest march” Monday in the PA capital city of Ramallah that was to head towards the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem.
Demonstrations – the euphemism for riots – were to be held in other Palestinian Authority cities as well, including Shechem, Jericho, Bethlehem and Hebron, and involved burning tires among other events.
“We call on the young people to clash with the occupation forces at points of conflict and checkpoints,” said the National Committee for the Commemoration of the Nakba in its announcement on its Facebook page, adding their presence was a “national duty.”
At least 30,000 Gazans gathered at the border with Israel despite warnings from the IDF and leaflets telling Gaza residents, “Don’t be puppets for Hamas.” By 2:30 pm on Monday afternoon, 20 Gazans were dead and 900 wounded while trying to destroy Israeli security infrastructure and storming the security fence despite clear warnings the IDF would shoot anyone presenting a threat.
The IDF warned over the weekend that the violence, injuries and deaths were precisely the photo op sought by Hamas as a diversion from the rising humanitarian and economic crisis in the enclave caused by its abject failures as a governing authority.
A total of more than 100,000 Palestinian Authority citizens were recruited for the violence planned on Monday and Tuesday – the “Nakba” events spanning the inauguration of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, as well as the day marked by Arabs as the “catastrophe” of Israel’s rebirth as a state. Hamas hopes to massacre Israeli civilians through infiltrations of the southern border: the IDF has vowed that not a single one will succeed.