RAMALLAH, April 7, 2018 (WAFA) – Palestinians condemned on Saturday the United State stand from the protests at the Gaza border while putting the blame for the high death and injury toll among Palestinian civilians on the Palestinian side while exonerating Israel and its army from any responsibility.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that remarks by the US envoy to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, on the situation in Gaza that resulted in the Israeli army killing of 29 Palestinian civilians in two weeks and injuring over 3000 people sounded as if the speaker is an Israeli army officer.
It said that these remarks intentionally ignore the crimes of the Israeli occupation that caused the death and injury of hundreds of Palestinians and a blatant violation of international law and resolutions as well as the principles of the United Nations that guarantee the right to peaceful protests.
Greenblatt had said in a tweet that the protesters should remain outside the 500-meter buffer zone Israel has created along its border but deep inside the Gaza Strip and should not approach the border fence in any way or any location.
“We condemn leaders and protestors who call for violence or who send protestors – including children – to the fence, knowing that they may be injured or killed,” said the US official without making any reference for Israel‘s sniper killing of Palestinian civilians, including children and journalists..
The ministry also condemned the US blocking of a statement by the United Nations Security Council on the Gaza events. The US had also blocked last week a similar Security Council statement and blocked a call by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for an independent investigation into Israel’s lethal response to peaceful protests by Gazans.
It said the blind US support for the Israeli occupation covers up its constant massacre of the Palestinian people.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has also condemned the US position at the UN.
PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat said in a statement on Saturday that the US decided to defend the colonial Israeli occupation and the massacres it commits in the occupied Palestinian territories.
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