GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip _ Thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday staged angry funeral processions for dozens of demonstrators killed by Israeli troops a day earlier as Israel weathered growing international condemnation over the killings.
With Palestinians commemorating their mass displacement 70 years ago following the creation of the nation of Israel, tensions also ran high Tuesday in the West Bank, with some scattered clashes reported between Palestinians and Israeli forces.
Nearly 60 Palestinian deaths on the Gaza Strip's frontier with Israel on Monday coincided with Israeli rejoicing over the Trump administration's symbolic inauguration of a new U.S. Embassy in the contested city of Jerusalem.
Israel insisted anew that it used live fire in response to a deadly threat posed by Palestinians seeking to breach the border fence between Israel and Gaza, a sliver of seaside territory that has languished for more than a decade under a blockade that has devastated its already faltering economy.
The Israeli military said Tuesday that in the wake of Monday's border confrontation, its aircraft hit more than a dozen sites in Gaza described as "terror targets."
In addition to the dead, Palestinian health officials said 2,700 people were injured in Monday's melee. Plumes of black smoke billowed into the air as Palestinians gathered near the border again Tuesday, but in smaller numbers than before as Gaza's 7-week-old protest campaign was winding down.
The renewed focus on the West Bank came as Palestinians observed what they call the nakba (catastrophe) of 70 years ago, when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced from their homes in what is now Israel. In the West Bank town of Ramallah, the Palestinians' administrative capital, piercing sirens wailed for a minute and 10 seconds to commemorate the anniversary, bringing traffic in some areas to a standstill.
Many Palestinian motorists clambered from their pulled-over cars to stand at attention _ a mirror of the momentary standstill that comes once a year on the Israeli side as the Holocaust is commemorated. Shops and businesses in Ramallah were closed for a general strike, and much of the normally bustling town was silent and deserted.
The Trump administration and Israel placed the blame for Monday's violence _ the worst since a 2014 conflict between Israel and Gaza _ squarely on Hamas, the militant group that controls the seaside enclave. Israel has cited firebombs thrown by protesters and flaming kites being flown across the frontier as justifying lethal force in response.
But Israel was condemned widely, accused of using disproportionate force against the protesters.
In Geneva, U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville denounced what he called the "appalling deadly violence" by Israeli forces. Ireland summoned the Israeli ambassador to urge restraint.
Turkey declared three days of official mourning, lowering flags to half-staff in a salute to slain Palestinians. And the embassy-opening ceremony drew new criticism from Muslim-majority Malaysia, which said the move would hamper peace efforts.
A broad international consensus holds that Jerusalem's fate must be settled through negotiations, since both Israel and the Palestinians claim it as their capital, and almost all countries keep embassies in Tel Aviv, not in the holy city.
Monday's dead in Gaza included an infant girl whose death was initially included in the protest toll because it was believed she had died from tear-gas inhalation, and thousands marched in her funeral procession on Tuesday.
But Gaza health officials cited by the Associated Press said the baby apparently had a preexisting medical condition, and that the death was under investigation by a Gaza human rights group.
