Israeli troops shot dead at least 13 Palestinian protesters and injured hundreds more on Sunday when Palestinian refugees from Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as residents of Gaza, tried to enter Israel in multiple areas. As many as 300 people from Syria overwhelmed border patrols and briefly entered Israel. The mass protest came on the day known as the Nakba when Palestinians mourn the 1948 establishment of Israel. Lebanon, Syria and Jordan are home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who were driven out of their homes in 1948. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinians killed on Sunday should be remembered as martyrs.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas: “I ask that God save the souls of the martyrs who fell today at the hands of the soldiers of the Israeli occupation while they were in a demonstration commemorating the Nakba inside the nation, in the West Bank, Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and on the Syrian and Lebanese border. Their precious blood will not be shed in vain, because it is blood that was shed for the liberation and rights of our Palestinian people.”