Thousands of people took to the streets of Gaza on Tuesday to protest US President Donald Trump’s visit to the occupied territories and voice their opposition to what they see as posturing peace talks with Israel.
During the protest, Palestinian fighters posed with an effigy of Trump at gunpoint while thousands of Gazans chanted slogans against his presence in Palestine.
Press TV reports:
The protesters also condemned Trump’s inaction on Israel’s harsh treatment of Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli jails. They also held banners that read, “Resistance is not terrorism,” making a reference to Trump’s designation of resistance groups in Gaza as terrorists.
The protest against Trump was organized by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), whose gunmen moved the effigy of Trump on the back of a truck on the streets in Gaza as people chanted slogans against Washington and Israeli regime.
Fawzi Barhum, the spokesman for the resistance movement Hamas, said on Tuesday that Trump was smearing the reputation of Palestinian “resistance” in favor of the Israeli occupation. The official said Trump’s likening of Hamas with the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group during a summit in Saudi Arabia, which came before his arrival in the Palestinian territories, was “aimed at besmirching the reputation of the Palestinian resistance.”
A top Hamas official, Mushir al-Masri, also censured Trump’s provocative remarks, saying the US president was “aligning himself with the policies of the [Israeli] occupier” regime.
Niamh Harris