A group of Palestinians, including children, marching to mark “Nakba Day” were shot by the Israeli army after crossing a Hamas checkpoint and entering what Israel calls a “buffer zone” – an empty area between checkpoints where Israeli soldiers generally shoot trespassers, Al Jazeera correspondent Nicole Johnston reported from Gaza City on Sunday.
“We are just hearing that one person has been killed and about 80 people have been injured,” Johnston said.
“There are about 500-600 Palestinian youth gathered at the Erez border crossing point. They don’t usually march as far as the border. There has been intermittent gunfire from the Israeli side for the last couple of hours.
“Hamas has asked us to leave; they are trying to move people away from the Israeli border. They say seeing so many people at the border indicates a shift in politics in the area.”
In south Tel Aviv, one Israeli man was killed and 17 were injured when a 22-year-old Arab Israeli driver drove his truck into a number of vehicles on one of the city’s main roads.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the driver, from an Arab village called Kfar Qasim in the West Bank, was arrested at the scene and is being questioned.
“Based on the destruction and the damage at the scene, we have reason to believe that it was carried out deliberately,” Rosenfeld said. He did not believe the motive was directly linked to the anniversary of the Nakba.
The Nakba, or “catastrophe”, is how Palestinians refer to the 1948 founding of the state of Israel.
-West Bank clashes
One of the biggest demonstrations was held near Qalandiya refugee camp and checkpoint, the main secured entry point into the West Bank from Israel, where about 100 protesters marched, Al Jazeera correspondent Nisreen El Shmayleh reported from Ramallah.
Some injuries were reported from tear gas canisters fired at protesters there, El Shmayleh said.
Small clashes were reported throughout various neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem and cities in the West Bank, between stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli security forces.
Israeli police said 20 arrests were made in the East Jerusalem area of Issawiyah for throwing stones and petrol bombs at Israeli border police officers.
About 70 arrests have been made in East Jerusalem throughout the Nakba protests that began on Friday, two days ahead of the May 15 anniversary, police spokesman Rosenfeld said.
Tensions had risen a day earlier after a 17-year-old Palestinian boy died of a gunshot wound suffered amid clashes on Friday in Silwan, another East Jerusalem neighbourhood.
Police said the source of the gunfire was unclear and that police were investigating, while local sources told Al Jazeera that Ayyash was shot in random firing of live ammunition by guards of Jewish settlers living in nearby Beit Yonatan.
-‘Syrians killed’
Syrian state television reported that Israeli forces killed four Syrian citizens who had been taking part in an anti-Israeli rally on the Syrian side of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights border on Sunday.
Israeli army radio said dozens were wounded when Palestinian refugees from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border were shot for trying to break through the frontier fence.
Israeli army spokepersons’ office said an Israeli army patrol shot in the air in an effort to desist “people trying to cross into Israel and trying to damage the fence.” There was no comment on reports of the injured.
About 20,000 people are expected to gather by the end of Sunday at Ras Maroun, a Lebanese border town.
Matthew Cassel, a journalist en route to Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, tweeted that dozens of buses were departing Nahr al-Bared and Baddawi refugee camps in northern Lebanon.
Some activists tweeted that the Lebanese and Jordanian authorities were prohibiting protesters from nearing the borders. The information could not be independently verified.
-‘End to Zionist project’
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned Sunday’s demonstrations.
“I regret that there are extremists among Israeli Arabs and in neighbouring countries who have turned the day on which the State of Israel was established, the day on which the Israeli democracy was established, into a day of incitement, violence and rage”, Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting.
“There is no place for this, for denying the existence of the State of Israel. No to extremism and no to violence. The opposite is true”, he said.
Earlier Sunday Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas-controlled Gaza, repeated the group’s call for the end of the state of Israel.
Addressing Muslim worshippers in Gaza City on Sunday, Haniyeh said Palestinians marked this year’s Nakba “with great hope of bringing to an end the Zionist project in Palestine”.
“To achieve our goals in the liberation of our occupied land, we should have one leadership,” Haniyeh said, praising the recent unity deal with its rival, Fatah, the political organisation which controls the West Bank under Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’ leadership.
Meanwhile, a 63 second-long siren rang midday in commemoration of the Nakba’s 63rd anniversary.
Over 760,000 Palestinians – estimated today to number 4.7 million with their descendants – fled or were driven out of their homes in the conflict that followed Israel’s creation.
Many took refuge in neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere. Some continue to live in refugee camps.
About 160,000 Palestinians stayed behind in what is now Israeli territory and are known as Arab Israelis. They now total around 1.3 million, or some 20 percent of Israel’s population.
Fonte: Al Jazeera
Fonte: 
Iran – Tehran is very worried. Syria gives its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, “strategic depth” by serving as a key supplier of weapons. Chaos in Syria will make the regime of Bashar al-Assad regime more dependent on Iran. But in the end, Tehran is worried a Sunni-led government inimical to its interests will arise in Damascus – something that would stress and then likely break the “resistance axis” of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.
Israel – Israel is worried that the protests sweeping Syria will lead to chaos and possibly civil war in Syria. The Assad regime has kept the border with Israel quiet for over 40 years. But Israel also sees opportunity in the protests to pressure and break the “resistance axis”.
Saudi Arabia – This is an interesting case. Syria supported Saudi Arabia’s intervention into Bahrain to support its Saudi-backed Sunni government against its Shia majority. This angered Syria’s ally, Iran. But at the same time, Al Arabiyya Television, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, has covered the Syrian protests critically from the beginning, something that has led to a backlash against Riyadh in the Syrian media.
Lebanon – The Lebanese government yesterday helped block action at the UN Security Council against Damascus. But many in Lebanon see development in Syria as an opportunity to change that country’s heavy handed policies with Lebanon. There are also many who are worried, however, that instability in Syria could spill over the border, setting off Lebanon’s delicate sectarian system.
The United States – The regime’s reaction to the protests have shifted Washington’s previous policy of “principled engagement” to a more confrontational approach driven by events on the ground. Last Friday’s protests and death tolls were a watershed event – not only were the 103 killed the highest number killed so far in Syria, it’s the highest single day death toll in the entire “Arab Spring” outside Libya. The United States is preparing for all eventualities.
A economia dos 17 países da zona do euro cresceu 0,8% no primeiro trimestre do ano, indicando uma melhoria em relação aos últimos três meses de 2010, quando houve crescimento de 0,3%.
Observ@tório de Relações Internacionais - UFOP 