Palestinian president Abbas to shun Pence over Jerusalem move
 

RAMALLAH: Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas will refuse to meet US Vice President Mike Pence later this month following Washington´s controversial policy shift on Jerusalem, an Abbas aide said on Saturday, as protests gripped the Palestinian territories for a third straight day.
Retaliatory Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip killed two Hamas men before dawn, as unrest simmered over President Donald Trump´s controversial declaration of Jerusalem as Israel´s capital.
A total of four people have now been killed and dozens wounded since Trump announced the move, which drew criticism from every other member of the UN Security Council at an emergency meeting on Friday.
?There will be no meeting with the vice president of America in Palestine,? Abbas´s diplomatic adviser Majdi al-Khaldi told AFP. ?The United States has crossed all the red lines with the Jerusalem decision,? he added.
There were fresh clashes on Saturday as Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank hurled stones at Israeli troops, who responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds. In the Gaza Strip, mourners vented their anger at the funerals of two people killed by Israeli troops during clashes at the border fence on Friday and the two Hamas men killed early on Saturday.
A woman was wounded by Israeli army fire during clashes at the border following one funeral attended by thousands in the Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis. There have been fears of a much larger escalation of violence after Hamas leader Ismail Haniya called for a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising, and analysts have been anxiously watching what happens next. Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group both renewed that call on Saturday.
Dozens of protesters were wounded by rubber bullets or live fire in clashes in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem that followed the main weekly Muslim prayers on Friday.
Tens of thousands also protested in Muslim and Arab countries, including Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia. Saturday´s pre-dawn air strike on a base of Hamas´s military wing in Nusseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, was one of several, the Israeli military said.
It followed three rocket attacks Friday night from Gaza into southern Israel. ?Today... in response to the rockets fired at southern Israeli communities throughout yesterday, Israel air force aircraft targeted four facilities belonging to the Hamas in the Gaza Strip,? the army said.
The Hamas health ministry in Gaza said the two dead men were members of the movement´s armed wing, which has fought three wars with Israel since 2008. On Friday night, a rocket hit the southern Israeli city of Sderot although Israeli public radio said it did not explode and did not cause any casualties. The Israeli military said that its Iron Dome air defence system intercepted an earlier rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave.The military retaliated on Friday night with air strikes on what it said were two targets and the Gaza health ministry said 14 people were wounded, among them women and children. The Salahedin Brigades claimed responsibility for one of the attacks.

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