The death toll reached 18 after a weekend of clashes on the Israeli-Gaza border. Thousands of Palestinians took part in the start of a wave of protests ignited by Hamas, the Islamist terror faction in control of Gaza. As Hamas officials insisted the clashes would continue for weeks, their rival in the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas, declared a national day of mourning over the weekend and blamed Israel for the violence. These protests are taking place within an explosive context, amid a deep crisis in the peace process and among the Palestinian factions themselves, further increasing the risk of the situation in Gaza escalating out of control. Both Hamas and Abbas share a desire to ratchet up tensions with Israel and the United States, but not much else. Indeed, the recent outbreak of violence will surely only exacerbate months of simmering tensions between the two feuding Palestinian parties as each attempts to take credit for the protests.

Abbas seems keen on instigating a broader clash. The Palestinian Authority leader made headlines last month for calling the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a “settler son of a dog” in a speech admonishing the Trump Administration’s policies. The rhetoric was par for the course for Abbas, who has steadily upped the insults since Trump’s speech on recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December. Yet in the same speech Abbas also directed the bulk of his ire towards Hamas, the group that overthrew his Palestinian Authority in Gaza over a decade ago.

Read the full article at the American Interest.