General strike in West Bank and Gaza marking Nakba Day
The strike came in response to Monday’s violence on the Gaza border.
By ADAM RASGONUpdated: MAY 16, 2018 00:11A Palestinian in the Old City of Jerusalem closing his shop in support of general strikes in West Bank and Gaza marking Nakba Day(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Private- and public-sector institutions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip observed a general strike on Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority news site Wafa reported.The strike came in response to Monday’s violence in the Gaza border region, in which the IDF, according to the Hamas-run Health Minis- try, killed over 60 people and injured more than 2,700 during protests near the border fence.The IDF described the protests as “violent riots,” saying Gazans threw firebombs and rocks at its personnel, attempted to plant a bomb near the border fence and tried to enter Israel. The IDF said 24 of the people who were killed were terrorists.Pictures and videos on Twitter show padlocked storefronts and few people walking around the streets of Ramallah and other Palestinian cities.Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza also marked on Tuesday what they call “the Nakba.”Nakba, which means catastrophe, refers to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the war surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948.At noon on Tuesday, sirens sounded in Ramallah, Nablus and other Palestinian cities to commemorate the Nakba.A number of relatively small and scattered marches took place in the West Bank to mark the Nakba. At some of the marches, clashes broke out between young Palestinians and Israeli security forces.According to the Red Crescent, 264 Palestinians were injured in the violence, the vast majority from inhaling tear gas.
The IDF said 1,300 Palestinian participated in “violent riots” in the West Bank, rolling burning tires at security forces and hurling rocks and firebombs at them.The army said it used “crowd dispersal means” against the rioters.Reuters contributed to this report.
