The Times, Guardian, Independent, Telegraph and Mail Online report on the violence in Gaza yesterday. The Times says: “At least 59 Palestinians were killed and 2,700 injured when Israeli forces opened fire on protesters yesterday as the United States broke with decades of diplomatic precedent and opened an embassy in Jerusalem.”

BBC Radio Four’s Today Programme reported on the violence yesterday. The programme interviewed Israeli Ambassador to the UK Mark Regev, who said: “We used live fire in only a very measured way in a very surgical way and only when there is no alternative… We have to protect our people. If we allow the Hamas terrorists to enter Israel we will have dead Israelis. We must protect our border.”

The Times and Guardian published galleries of images from the events in Israel yesterday.

The Guardian and Independent report on the international outcry over the death toll and the IDF’s use of live fire. The Independent and Telegraph also report that Turkish President Recep Erdoğan has accused Israel of carrying out a “genocide” on the Palestinians yesterday. The Sun reports that Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has accused Israel of “flagrant illegality” over the tactics used by the IDF.

The Times Middle East Correspondent Richard Spencer wrote an article about how US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the US Embassy has created further divisions between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Guardian published an editorial about the demonstrations in Gaza yesterday, which called Israel’s use of live fire “inexcusable” and criticised Israel for “treat[ing] the violence as a jailer might a prison riot: a tragic fault of the inmates”.

The Telegraph published an editorial which notes that the “Israeli soldiers found themselves trying to prevent thousands of demonstrators from breaking through the border, egged on by Hamas”. The editorial is critical of the decisions taken by US President Donald Trump, saying: “there is no Israel-Palestine peace process left for Donald Trump to wreck.”

BBC News Online, ITV News Online and the Telegraph reports that Israel is braced for further violence in the Palestinian territories today, which is “Nakba Day,” during which the Palestinians mark the anniversary of Palestinians being displaced from their homes in 1948. However, the Guardian reports that no violence is expected today, because funerals for those killed yesterday will be taking place.

The Daily Express reports that Trump has blamed Hamas for the deaths of the Palestinians and said Israel has a right to defend itself. The Independent also reports that the White House issues a statement blaming Hamas for the violence, which describes yesterday’s demonstration as a “gruesome propaganda attempt”.

The Guardian published an opinion piece by author Rachel Shabi, who accuses Trump of “a match into Jerusalem with no plan to put out the fire” and “ deploy[ing] that far-rightist trick of disruption for the sake of it”.

Mail Online reports that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said 55 missiles were launched from Syria into Israel last week, and called the escalation between Israel and Iran a “completely new stage” in the conflict.

BBC News Online reports that the husband of jailed British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has urged UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to raise his wife’s case when he meets Iran’s Foreign Minister in Brussels later today.

All the Israeli papers juxtapose the celebrations in Jerusalem at the opening of the US Embassy and the violent rioting on the Gaza border that led to death of over 50 Palestinians. Both Yediot Ahronot and Maariv used the same picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife posing for a selfie with Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner in front of the plaque commemorating the opening. The other picture in sharp contrast shows according to Yediot Ahronot, “day of battle in Gaza”. Both Israel Hayom and Maariv add to the contradictory note by also including thousands of people in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square celebrating Neta Barzilai’s Eurovision success.  Israel Hayom prominently highlights Palestinians planting explosives along the border fence. Haaretz leads with “55 Palestinians killed and more than 1,000 injured from IDF fire in demonstration on Gaza border.”

Israel Hayom reports on a warning from security officials to the Hamas leadership that if the violence continues Israel will consider targeting strikes against them, publishing the warning “you are not immune”. While Haaretz reports, Hamas has conveyed indirect messages to Israel that it might change tack and tone down the violence as more rioting is expected today. Yediot Ahronot says: “From the perspective of Gaza’s residents, they went to war yesterday over their fate… even in the absence of a formal declaration of war, we are facing a military conflagration in the Gaza Strip. The violence is liable to be ratcheted up to include rocket fire and attempts to infiltrate Israeli territory with ground and naval forces. All of that will be done under the cover of a popular uprising, in what is known as a ‘hybrid war’: the civilians will be on the frontlines, and behind them will be the ‘resistance’ [in the form of] Hamas’s military wing. They are deployed with anti-tank rockets and sniper guns behind the demonstrators, just a few kilometres from the border, organizing and pushing the population forward.”Maariv notes “the goal was to prevent at all costs an infiltration into Israeli territory by the rioters, which could have caused injury to soldiers or civilians, attempts to kidnap them and to destroy equipment, outposts and communities, and to set them on fire, as was done to the Gazan side of the border crossing at Kerem Shalom.   From this aspect, the IDF achieved its mission and Hamas failed to accomplish its goals. The fact that as of now the West Bank and East Jerusalem have remained relatively calm.”

Maariv includes the dual assessment, “The good news: The IDF succeeded, yesterday too, in blocking the Palestinian masses and preventing the fence from being breached in Gaza. All the efforts, and considerable efforts were made, to penetrate the Israeli iron wall, to break the fence or to create chaos and break through the Israeli troops—failed.  The bad news: The Palestinians are still here. They are not going anywhere and they will get up this morning slightly more despairing than they got up yesterday morning. It is for good reason that IDF officials have been repeating over the past weeks that the goal is to perform the mission with a minimum of fatalities on the other side. What Hamas seeks to achieve is as many fatalities as possible (on our side, but also on theirs), in order to regain world attention, to fuel the fire and the anger, to try to create the necessary energy for a further explosion.”  

 Maariv sums up yesterday, “Only the State of Israel could supply a day of the kind that we experienced yesterday: the embassy was dedicated in Jerusalem, several dozen kilometers away 52 Palestinians were killed at the fence in a day of blood, fire and pillars of smoke, and a 45-minute drive from there tens of thousands of Israelis gathered in Rabin Square to hear the peculiar clucking that had won the Eurovision two days earlier. Two huge parties on one side, with 52 funerals and zero achievements on the other side is too good to be true—but it is completely true.”