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.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman has said that the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem would create incitement and instability in the region and ruled out Washington as being a mediator for Middle East peace.
"With this step, the US administration has cancelled its role in the peace process and has insulted the world, the Palestinian people and the Arab and the Islamic nation and it has created incitement and instability," said Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeineh.
A top Turkish official has condemned Israel for deadly clashes along the Israeli-Gaza border, while the foreign ministry has blasted the US decision to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem.
Taking to Twitter, the spokesman to the Turkish president, Ibrahim Kalin, called the clashes that have killed at least 41 Palestinians "another dark spot, another crime added to Israel's wall of shame."
He also criticised the international community for its silence "in the face of this systematic barbarism." He tweeted: "Palestine is not alone. Jerusalem is not alone."
The Turkish foreign ministry condemned in a statement the US decision to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem, saying it violated international law and damaged the peace process. It also slammed Israel: "We curse the massacre carried out by Israeli security forces encouraged by this step on the Palestinians participating in peaceful demonstrations."
The foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, called Israel's actions "state terror."
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has urged Israeli authorities to show restraint in its use of force against demonstrators.
“France calls on all actors to show responsibility to prevent a new escalation,” Mr Le Drian said in a statement. “France again calls on the Israeli authorities to exercise discernment and restraint in the use of force that must be strictly proportionate.”
Mr Le Drian said the US decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem “violated international law and in particular UN Security Council resolutions.”
The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza has risen to 43, health officials say, with more than 2,238 people reported injured.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a 57-member body representing Muslim-majority countries, has said that the US opening of an embassy in Jerusalem was an “illegal decision” and “an attack on the historical, legal, natural and national rights of the Palestinian people, which undermines the standing of the United Nations and rule of international law and thus represents an affront to international peace and security”.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein has condemned the "shocking" violence at the Gaza border.
The images of the protests in Gaza have been coming in all day, here are some:
The top images is from Reuter, while the latter two are by Thomas Coex from AFP/Getty Images.
They provide quite the contrast to the images from the US Embassy opening in Jerusalem earlier, which was attended by jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump..
The top image of US marines at the ceremony is from Reuters, while the second of husband and wife Jared and Ivanka is from AFP/Getty Images.
The Palestinian health ministry says that the death toll has risen to 52 on the Gaza border.
The Palestinian representative at the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to stop the “savage onslaught” against civilians in Gaza.
“We condemn in the strongest terms this atrocity by the Israeli occupying forces, using this massive firepower against civilians who have the right to demonstrate peacefully and they have been demonstrating peacefully,” he told reporters.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have also called for a meeting of the Security Council.