Dozens of Palestinians have staged a protest in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron against US President Donald Trump who has voiced strong support of Israel, pelting a huge portrait of America’s leader with shoes.

Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist, said on Friday at the protest that the demonstrators wanted “to send the message to the Trump administration that we exist, we deserve full rights as everybody in the world”.

“We disrespect this president who does not see us as equal human beings with everyone,” he said.

The demonstrators also called for the Israeli army to reopen a street near the Jewish settler enclave in the heart of Hebron.

The street has been largely closed off to Palestinians for the past 23 years since the massacre carried out by a far-right Jewish settler on February 25, 1994.

Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish settler, mowed down 29 Palestinians inside Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque on February 25, 1994.

Friday’s protest, on the eve of the anniversary of the massacre, ended with a clash with Israeli soldiers on Friday.

Soldiers fired tear gas and sound grenades to disperse the crowd as cannons doused them with stinking water, according to AFP news agency. There was no report of injuries.

Jewish settlers, of whom 500 are entrenched in the centre of the city of about 200,000 Palestinians, hurled stones at the protesters who also pelted soldiers with stones.

Source: aljazeera.com