Palestinians are expected to turn up in big numbers today both in Gaza and the West Bank to protest against the US policy shift on Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Territories.
The Israeli military has reportedly bolstered its forces in the West Bank and along the Gaza border in anticipation of mass Palestinian protests.
According to Channel 12 TV, IDF soldiers received strict guidelines advising them to avoid casualties and stop the protests from growing out of control.
The IDF is said to be concerned that a major escalation would ensue if the soldiers used lethal force in response to Palestinians lobbing rocks and fire bombs at them during the demonstrations.
Additional officers have reportedly been deployed to the border to ensure that Israeli soldiers “react proportionally and only use lethal force in cases where lives are in danger.”
During the Great March of Return, a series of Palestinian protests held on the Gaza border last year to commemorate the loss of their land to forceful Israeli expropriations since the 1940's, as well as the recent US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a total of 183 Palestinians were killed and 6,000 wounded by live ammunition used by Israeli security forces, according to a UN probe.
The death toll from that outbreak of violence eclipsed the 103 homicides recorded by Israeli police in the country in 2018. Prime Minister Netanyahu rejected the report,…
