Jumblat Says Arabs, World Have Abandoned Palestinians

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat lamented Monday that Palestinians in Gaza have been “abandoned.”

“The Palestinian people in Gaza have been abandoned amid the siege, shelling and sniper fire,” Jumblat tweeted.

“As if there is no Arab League, international community, a so-called United Nations or anyone,” he added.

“I salute the people of Gaza and may God have mercy on the martyr Abdul Fattah Abdul Nabi and the rest of the martyrs,” Jumblat went on to say.

Seventeen Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded when a mass protest near Gaza's border with Israel led to clashes on Friday, in the deadliest single day in the territory since a 2014 war with Israel.

Palestinians say protesters were shot while posing no danger to soldiers, while rights groups have questioned Israel's use of live fire.

Israel has for a decade imposed a blockade of Gaza that it says aims to isolate the Hamas militant group, but which critics say amounts to collective punishment for the territory's two million residents.

Egypt has largely sealed its border with Gaza in recent years, while the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority has also carried out a series of punitive measures against the strip.