Palestinian factions call for ‘day of rage’ to foil annexation
Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip have called for a “day of popular rage” on Wednesday to protest Israel’s plan to apply its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.
Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip have called for a “day of popular rage” on Wednesday to protest Israel’s plan to apply its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.
In a recorded address to the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) Virtual Summit 2020 on Sunday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touted the application of Israeli law to areas of Judea and Samaria—part of the “Peace to Prosperity” plan unveiled by U.S. President Donald Trump in January.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Christian supporters of Israel in the US on Sunday in a video message during an annual conference of Christians United for Israel, an evangelical organization with millions of members in the United States.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates are set to join forces in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jerusalem Post reports. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the partnership in a statement on Thursday, saying the decision to cooperate had come after months of intense negotiation.
The cabinet and the Knesset voted on Wednesday to advance legislation that would enable the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) to use its digital tools to track coronavirus patients. The bill passed a preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum by a vote of 44 to 33, but still must pass additional readings in a Knesset committee and the plenum next week in order to become law.
Hope but also frustration and uncertainty marked the world’s efforts Sunday to deal with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. officials will gather this week to discuss whether to give Israel a green light for its plan to annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s target date of July 1 approaches.
The Israeli government’s ad hoc “Corona Cabinet” approved on Monday several new measures to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has begun to realize that Iran is lying about its nuclear ambitions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the opening of Sunday’s cabinet meeting.
Even the most contentious disagreements in previous governments – including coalitions that comprised Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked – didn’t prepare Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the miseries of this current government. The combination of an equal share unity government with deadbeats such as Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, his dominant deputy with an independent agenda in the form of Gabi Ashkenazi, and a cohort of inexperienced Knesset members who haven’t graduated political boot camp yet, spurred Netanyahu to utter the word “election” more than once this week in closed-door conversations.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told various officials over the past few days that he is considering a two-stage plan to implement Israel’s declaration of sovereignty in the Jordan Valley parts of Judea and Samaria.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday that Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank would “amount to a breach of international law.”
Just over two weeks before a possible Israeli annexation of some as-yet unspecified portion of the West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces is preparing for a wide range of scenarios for potential regional fallout — up to and including a large-scale wave of terror attacks — while still not being told exactly what the government has in mind.
On Wednesday, Israel’s High Court of Justice struck down a law passed in 2017 to retroactively legalize settler houses built illegally on Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank, CBN News reports. The law was frozen from the time it passed in order for petitions against it to be heard.
The Palestinian prime minister says his government will declare a new Palestinian state, perhaps as early as next month, if Israel goes ahead with plans to annex parts of the West Bank.
As Israel sees a spike in COVID-19 cases following the easing of lockdown restrictions, government leaders began to debate a controversial new bill Tuesday that would give the executive branch wide-ranging emergency powers to manage the virus outbreak, CBN News reported. The bill must first be approved by a special COVID-19 government committee before going on to the Ministerial Committee for Legislation and to the Knesset for approval.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told settler leaders on Sunday that he still intends to annex all West Bank settlements on the July 1 date that is the earliest allowed by his coalition deals, but he acknowledged that annexing other lands allocated to Israel under the Trump peace plan will likely take more time, several participants in the meeting told The Times of Israel.
It is highly unlikely the US will approve Israeli advancement of plans to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank on July 1, a well-placed source told the Times of Israel (TOI) Wednesday. A central condition of US approval is that a joint US-Israel mapping committee must conclude its work on delineating the exact borders of the territory Israel would annex. According to the TOI source, it could take the committee weeks, if not months, to complete this task.
As he prepares to ask the Knesset to vote on a plan for Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained Thursday that MKs will only have to vote on the issue of sovereignty, not on the issue of a Palestinian state, the Jerusalem Post reports.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) warned Israel on Wednesday of “serious consequences,” if the Jewish state continues its attempts to annex parts of the West Bank and Jordan Valley. “There would be consequences for this measure on the economic and political Palestinian-Israeli relationship,” said PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat.