At least 58 Palestinians were killed on Monday in Gaza and more than 2,700 others wounded as the Israeli army fired live ammunition, tear gas and firebombs at protesters assembled along several points near the fence with Israel.
The demonstrations, which coincided with protests against the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem, are part of a weeks-long movement calling for the right of return for Palestinian refugees to the areas they were forcibly expelled from in 1948.
Since the protests began on March 30, Israeli forces have killed at least 107 Palestinians in the coastal enclave and wounded about 12,000 people.
The protest comes ahead of the annual commemorations of the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, when the state of Israel was established on May 15, 1948, in a violent campaign that led to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their villages.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accuses Israel of “state terror” and “genocide”, according to state-run Anadolu agency, as Ankara announced three days of national mourning over the killing of scores of Palestinians in Gaza.
“Israel is wreaking state terror. Israel is a terror state,” Erdogan told Turkish students during a visit in Britain’s capital, London.
“What Israel has done is a genocide. I condemn this humanitarian drama, the genocide, from whichever side it comes, Israel or America,” he added.
Thousands had earlier marched through central Istanbul to denounce the bloodshed as the US moved its Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in defiance of widespread outrage in the Islamic world. Al Jazeera.
