A Palestinian protester jumps over burning tyres during demonstrations against a US brokered Mideast peace plan in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. AFP
The Israeli army announced an increased presence in the West Bank and near Gaza on Wednesday evening, as US President Donald Trump’s controversial peace plan sparked outrage among Palestinians.
The plan, seen as overwhelmingly supportive of Israeli goals and drafted with no Palestinian input, gives the Jewish state a US green light to annex key parts of the occupied West Bank.
It was widely cheered in Israel, but sparked fury among Palestinians, with protests breaking out in the West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
One rocket was fired from the strip on Wednesday evening.
In response, the army said Israeli “fighter jets and aircraft struck a number of Hamas terror targets in the southern Gaza Strip”.
Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli security forces clashed in various locations in the West Bank and further Palestinian protests are expected in the coming days.
The Israeli army announced on Wednesday it would deploy additional troops in the West Bank and the near the Gaza Strip.
“Following the ongoing situation assessment, it has been decided to reinforce the Judea and Samaria and Gaza Divisions with additional combat troops,” the army said in a statement, using the Israeli terms for the West Bank.
Trump, who unveiled the peace plan on Tuesday at the White House alongside Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with no Palestinian representatives present, said his initiative could succeed where others had failed.
But the plan grants Israel much of what it has sought in decades of international diplomacy, namely control over Jerusalem as its “undivided” capital, rather than a city to share with the Palestinians.
It also offers US approval for Israel to annex the strategically crucial Jordan Valley, which accounts for around 30 per cent of the West Bank, as well as other Jewish settlements in the territory.
The terms have been roundly rejected by Palestinian leaders, with president Mahmud Abbas vowing the proposal would end up in the dustbin of history.
Abbas is expected to visit the UN in the next two weeks to address the Security Council and explain his rejection of the plan, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN said on Wednesday.
Hamas said it could never accept anything short of Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the Palestinians to “come up with a counter-offer”.
“I know the Israelis would be prepared to sit down and negotiate on the basis of the vision that the president laid out,” Pompeo said, as he headed to Britain on a five-nation tour.
