As it happened: At least 58 Palestinians killed and thousands injured by Israeli forces amid protests at US embassy in Jerusalem
As Israeli and American officials celebrated the change, thousands of Palestinian protesters were wounded or killed by Israeli bullets
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Your support makes all the difference.At least 58 Palestinians were killed and more than 2,000 people wounded in protests at the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel, according to Palestinian officials, on the same day the US fulfiled its controversial promise to move its embassy to the contested city of Jerusalem.
Thousands of demonstrators set fire to tyres on Monday, sending thick plumes of smoke into the air to deter Israeli snipers. The Israeli military said the protests were being used as cover for attacks on soldiers.
It marked the deadliest single day of protests in a weeks-long campaign from Hamas in the run up to the US embassy move and the Nakba, or ‘Catastrophe’, on Tuesday - celebrated in Israel as the country’s 70th birthday.
The order given to Israeli soldiers was to prevent Palestinians from crossing into Israel at any price, including direct live fire. Israel has also warned Hamas that any mass breakthrough will result in airstrikes on the group’s infrastructure inside the Strip - with a number of targets hit by Israeli forces by the afternoon.
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Hamas, the militant group that rules the Strip, had urged supporters to break through the 11-year-old Israel blockade, which has left Gaza "uninhabitable".
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the actions of the Israeli forces as a "genocide" and Israel as a "terrorist state".
"No matter from what side, whether from the United States or Israel, I curse this humanitarian plight, this genocide," he said.
Kuwait has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council amid international outcry over the clashes.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump's top aides and supporters on Monday celebrated the opening of the new US Embassy in Jerusalem as a campaign promised fulfilled.
Mr Trump's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, along with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, led the US delegation with a single message: Only Trump had the courage to act on what America has wanted for a long time.
“While presidents before him have backed down from their pledge to move the American Embassy once they were in office, this president delivered. Because when President Trump makes a promise, he keeps it,” Mr Kushner said in his speech.
In a recorded message played at the ceremony, Mr Trump said the embassy move was a "long time coming" but he remained committed to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
“Our greatest hope is for peace,” said Trump, whose recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and relocation of the embassy to the holy city from Tel Aviv, has outraged Palestinians and drawn international concern.
“The United States remains fully committed to facilitating a lasting peace agreement,” Mr Trump said. “The United States will always be a great friend of Israel and a partner in the cause of freedom and peace.”
The relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv has infuriated the Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as a future capital.
US ambassador David Friedman welcomes guests to the embassy in Jerusalem to long applause.
A mention of Mr Trump gets an ovation.
He says: "The US finally takes the next step, a step long voted upon, litigated and prayed for all these years. Today we open the United States embassy in Jerusalem, Israel. Again the US leads the way as the first nation to do so."
The head of the United Nations has said he is worried about the news coming from Gaza, "with the high number of people killed."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his concerns in Vienna, as clashes were taking place along the Israeli-Palestinian border and senior aides to President Donald Trump were in Jerusalem celebrating the opening of the new US embassy there.
Mr Guterres said: "I'm particularly worried about the news coming from Gaza with the high number of people killed."
Here comes Mr Trump's video message.
He says the opening has been "a long time coming".
He says the main aim for the US is still peace, and America the status quo kept up at Jerusalem's holy sites.
Mr Trump said he wants to extend a hand in friendship to Israelis, Palestinians and their neighbours.
Two more Palestinians have been killed in the protests taking the death toll to 41, according to health officials in Gaza.
Mr Trump ended his message with this:
“The United States will always be a great friend of Israel and a partner in the cause of freedom and peace. We wish Ambassador Friedman good luck as he takes up office in this beautiful Jerusalem embassy and we extend a hand in friendship to Israel, the Palestinians and to all of their neighbours. May there be peace. May God bless this embassy. May God bless all who serve there and may God bless the United States of America.”
Some longer excerpts from Mr Trump's video message:
"Today we officially opened the United States embassy in Jerusalem. Congratulations. It’s been a long time coming," he said.
"For many years we failed to acknowledge the obvious, the plain reality that Israel’s capital is Jerusalem."
Lebanon's foreign minister has called the US decisions to move its embassy to Jerusalem and to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal policy failures that will lead to more tensions and extremism in the region.
Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, whose Free Patriotic Movement is politically aligned with the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, told Reuters that moving the US embassy in Israel would undermine peace in the Middle East.
Mr Bassil said that alongside President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, the US moves added to a long list of US policy failures in the region.
“This is a move that will cause more tensions and lead to more extremism in the region,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Brussels. “We cannot accept to have any kind of peace while Jerusalem is being kidnapped.”
“This is another failure,” Mr Bassil told Reuters. “Israel has declared a long time ago that it is seeking anything but peace, but now the United States is backing Israel in its policy of launching wars against the peoples of the region.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, in a separate statement issued in Beirut, called the embassy move a provocative move that would “put all peace paths in the region in front of a dead end” and exacerbate violence and extremism. “We affirm our complete solidarity with the Palestinian brothers in their legitimate struggle,” he added.