Dozens of Palestinian protesters gathered at the Kalandia checkpoint in the West Bank on Monday to show solidarity with the international activists killed earlier when the IDF stormed their boats off of Gaza.


Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for three days of mourning to commemorate deadly clashes between activists and the Israeli Navy which took place in international waters earlier in the day.


Abbas slammed the "slaughter" of protesters participating in the "Free Gaza" campaign, according to an AFP report, and former-PA foreign minister Nabil Sha’ath said the PA will press for sanctions against Israel, en route to seeking its expulsion from the UN.


Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad also criticized Israel's actions against the "freedom flotilla" on Monday as showing Israel's "disrespect" for international laws and conventions.


"Israeli occupation forces have committed a crime against international peace activists," said Fayyad.


“The inhumane action of the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people and the prevention of the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza is sign of [the Zionists'] weakness, not strength,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also commented Monday in reaction to the IDF storming of the “Free Gaza” flotilla.


The statement was made during a meeting with Indonesia's speaker of parliament in Teheran.

 

Sheikh Raed Salah was not one of the injured flotilla participants brought to an Israeli hospital earlier for surgery as was erroneously reported earlier Monday, a police spokesperson clarified to the Post.


Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, was said to be one of the members of the flotilla, although his current whereabouts are unknown.

 

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