Tag Archives: West bank

Palestinians are bracing themselves for settler assaults on their land as the olive harvesting season kicks into high gear. Palestinian farmers, civil society, local and international volunteers, as well as video have documented Israeli settlers uprooting olive trees, stealing olive crops, and starting fires on nearby land. Anees Sweidan, deputy …

Israel will remain opposed to Washington’s plan to reopen a U.S. consulate in Jerusalem that has traditionally been a base for diplomatic outreach to the Palestinians, even if political conditions change, an Israeli cabinet minister said on Tuesday. The consulate was subsumed into the U.S. Embassy that was moved to …

Israel has continued to destroy structures in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Tor Wennesland, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, told the Security Council on Wednesday. The council heard how Israel has since July demolished and seized Palestinian-owned structures across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.  Wennesland …

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan is heading to Cairo on Wednesday for talks with Egyptian government officials about rising tensions between Israel and Hamas. The Biden administration is leaning heavily on Egypt, which has long played a role as mediator between Israel and Hamas, for help in …

A Palestinian military court on Monday began the trial of 14 security officers charged with beating to death a prominent critic of President Mahmoud Abbas, in a case that has drawn widespread protests and calls for his resignation. Nizar Banat’s death following his arrest on June 24 has heightened https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/criticism-palestinian-security-forces-raises-pressure-abbas-2021-06-30 …

A year before representatives of Israel and Palestine met at the White House on Sept. 13, 1993, and signed a framework for peace, Israeli authorities had confiscated 48 square kilometers of Palestinian land south of Bethlehem and converted it into a nature reserve. The Israeli army has, 28 years later, …

A Palestinian was killed Sunday by Israeli gunfire near Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, amid reports of heavy clashes in the area. The ministry said a Palestinian man from the village of Borqin west of Jenin who had been shot with a live bullet …

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel on Friday of destroying the two-state solution with actions he said could lead Palestinians to demand equal rights within one binational state comprising Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Addressing the U.N. General Assembly via video link from the West Bank, Abbas, 85, …

A new poll has found that nearly 80 percent of Palestinians want President Mahmoud Abbas to resign, reflecting widespread anger over the death of an activist in security forces’ custody and a crackdown on protests over the summer. The survey released Tuesday found support for Abbas’ Hamas rivals remained high …

Palestinian artist Abeer Jebril’s dark-coloured work present ballerinas chained in barbed wire, dancing on rocks, or dealing with barricades to reflect what she calls the “ticking bomb” actuality of ladies in Gaza. She hopes her portraits will carry consideration to the social and political issues girls face in Gaza, house …

The humble spoon has taken its place alongside traditional flags and banners as a Palestinian resistance symbol, after prisoners were said to have carried out one of Israel’s most spectacular jail breaks with the utensil. When the six Palestinian militants escaped through a tunnel on Sept. 6 from the high …

Hopes rose on Monday of progress in the Palestinian peace process after landmark new talks between the leaders of Egypt and Israel. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh for discussions that focused on Palestinian-Israeli relations. It …

Israeli police shot and killed a knife-wielding Palestinian who attempted to stab police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday, officials said. Palestinian officials identified the deceased as a 50-year-old doctor from East Jerusalem, who residents said had faced financial issues in recent months. Hundreds of Palestinians had gathered earlier …

Israeli security forces unable to find six escaped Palestinian prisoners have arrested six of their relatives instead. The prisoners tunnelled their way out of the high-security Gilboa jail in northern Israel on Monday, having dug a hole in the floor of their cell with a spoon. Israel has deployed drones, …

Six Palestinians escaped from a high-security Israeli prison on Monday, police said, and Israeli media reports identified them as members of militant groups. The reports said five of the prisoners belonged to the Islamic Jihad movement and one was a former commander of an armed group affiliated with the mainstream …

Israel will lend the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority more than $150 million after the sides held their highest-level meeting in years, Israeli officials said on Monday, while playing down prospects of any major diplomatic breakthrough. Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who has overall responsibility for the Israeli-occupied West Bank, travelled to the …

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday, officials said. It was the highest-level meeting between Abbas and an Israeli minister to be made public since Israel’s new government was formed in June. Gantz, who heads a centrist …

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will push U.S. President Joe Biden to harden his approach to Iran during his first White House visit, with few prospects their talks will lead to renewed movement on Israeli-Palestinian peace. Yet both Israel and the United States have expressed hope the meeting on Thursday …

Egypt is to close the Rafah crossing on its border with the Gaza Strip until further notice on Monday, Egyptian security sources said. Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls Gaza, said it had been informed by Egypt of the decision to shut the crossing in both directions, without giving details. …

Israeli aircraft struck Hamas sites in Gaza late on Saturday, the military said, in an escalation of hostilities after earlier cross-border gunfire seriously injured an Israeli soldier and wounded 41 Palestinians, including two critically.Slideshow ( 5 images ) The injuries came during a Gaza protest organised by the enclave’s Islamist rulers …

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said he spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday and that the two agreed there was a need to make trust-building steps. It was the first high-level contact made public by the new Israeli government, which was sworn in last month, unseating the country’s …

An independent UN human rights expert has condemned the “unlawful and heartless” actions of Israeli authorities in repeatedly demolishing homes belonging to the Palestinian Bedouin community of Humsa Al-Baqai’a, in the occupied West Bank. Michael Lynk, the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, …

Palestinian workers in the Israel-occupied West Bank are putting the final touches on a decommissioned Boeing 707 aircraft to ready it for a new kind of takeoff: as a restaurant. Its enterprising owners, 60-year-old twin brothers Ata and Khamis Al-Sairafi, expect to welcome their first customers within weeks at the …

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has raised concerns with Israeli officials over the demolition of a family’s home in the West Bank, the State Department said on Thursday. “The secretary and other senior officials here at the State Department in recent days have raised these concerns directly with senior …

The Israeli army said Thursday it demolished the home of a Palestinian woman with US citizenship whose estranged husband stands accused of fatally shooting a Jewish student in the occupied West Bank. “Overnight… troops demolished the residence of the terrorist [Montasser] Shalabi, in the village of Turmus Ayya, northeast of …

Israel demolished the tent dwellings of at least 63 Bedouin in a village in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, a Palestinian official said, in an area designated by the Israeli military as a firing zone. Palestinians and rights groups accuse Israel of trying to forcibly clear out the Bedouin …

Norway’s largest pension fund KLP said on Monday it would no longer invest in 16 companies including Alstom ALSO.PA and Motorola MSI.N because of their links to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Along with a number of other countries, Norway considers the settlements a breach of international law. A 2020 United Nations report …

Israel demolished a Palestinian shop in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan on Tuesday, triggering scuffles between police and protesters who accused authorities of discriminatory enforcement of building permits in the holy city. Palestinians seek East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in a 1967 war, for a future state. Israel deems …

The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Saturday deployed security forces to confront protesters who took to the streets of Ramallah in the West Bank after one of President Mahmoud Abbas’s biggest critics died in custody. Nizar Banat had been arrested by PA forces who broke into a relative’s house where he …

The United Nations on Thursday accused Israel of flagrantly violating international law by expanding settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, saying settlements are illegal and urging the country’s new government to halt their enlargement immediately. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland reported on implementation …

A Palestinian activist who died in the custody of President Mahmoud Abbas’s security forces took blows to the head, a Palestinian rights group said after conducting an autopsy, adding the wounds indicated “an unnatural death”. According to relatives, Nizar Banat was severely beaten during his arrest by Palestinian security forces …

Israel allowed a limited resumption of commercial exports from the Gaza Strip on Monday in what it called a “conditional” measure one month after a truce halted 11 days of fighting with the Palestinian enclave’s Hamas rulers. Gaza border officials said the easing of Israeli restrictions would last two to …

Violent speech directed against Arabs and Palestinians on social media increased 15-fold during the recent hostilities in Gaza, a report has found.  Between May 6 and May 21 when clashes with Israel were most severe, hate speech against Palestinians rose dramatically in comparison with the same period in 2020, according …

Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian teenager during a clash in the occupied West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The violence erupted at a protest against Israeli settlements near the city of Nablus, witnesses said. The Israeli military called it “a violent riot with hundreds of …

Israeli officials said on Tuesday they would allow a right-wing march in Jerusalem’s Old City to go ahead next week under certain conditions, a day after police barred the event’s route fearing it would rekindle conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza. Several right-wing Israeli groups had planned a …

Israeli police detained two prominent Palestinian activists on Sunday who have become the faces of a campaign to halt Palestinian evictions from the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Footage on social media on Sunday showed Muna El-Kurd, 23, whose family faces eviction from their home in Sheikh Jarrah after …

Israeli police arrested a Palestinian protest leader in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem on Sunday, a day after forcefully detaining a prominent Al-Jazeera journalist covering the campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families from the area. The arrest Sunday of Muna Al-Kurd, confirmed by phone by …

Pakistan has taken “serious exception” to an Israeli far-right politician’s use of an image of a hospital in the capital city Islamabad, claiming it was a Hamas headquarters and “the largest medical complex in Gaza,” foreign office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said. “We have seen the statement by Israel’s former …

Instagram announced on Monday that the platform would be making changes to the way it displays content after receiving accusations of censoring Palestine-related content during the latest wave of violence in Gaza. The “stories” feature on Instagram was built according to an algorithm that favors original content as opposed to …

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s likely next prime minister, is a self-made tech millionaire who dreams of annexing most of the occupied West Bank. Bennett has said that creation of a Palestinian state would be suicide for Israel, citing security reasons. But the standard-bearer of Israel’s religious right and staunch supporter of …

The next phase of international diplomacy to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must focus on ending Israel’s occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state, according to Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN. He told Arab News said that efforts at the UN relating to Palestine this year have fallen …

An Israeli court Wednesday postponed a hearing in a case that could see two Palestinian families expelled from their homes in occupied east Jerusalem’s Silwan district so Jewish settlers can move in, their lawyer said. The delayed hearing on the dispute comes less than three weeks after a similar case …

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Egypt on Wednesday on the next leg of a diplomatic mission aimed at shoring up a cease-fire that ended an 11-day war between Israel and the Hamas. Blinken was scheduled to hold talks with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Foreign Minister Sameh …

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged on a Middle East mission on Tuesday that Washington would provide new aid to help rebuild Gaza as part of efforts to bolster a ceasefire between its Hamas Islamist rulers and Israel. Hoping to reverse a move taken by former President Donald Trump …