The United States officially shuttered its consulate in Jerusalem on Monday, downgrading the status of its main diplomatic mission to the Palestinians by folding it into the US Embassy to Israel.
White House adviser Jared Kushner continued a whirlwind overseas trip Wednesday aimed at rallying U.S. allies to support his still-unannounced Mideast peace plan.
US special envoy Jared Kushner was interviewed on Monday on Sky News in Arabic, saying that ‘the American peace plan is very detailed and will focus on drawing the border and resolving the core issues.’
The two senior Waqf officials were arrested on Sunday in a follow-up to Friday’s riots on the Temple Mount in which thousands of Palestinians stormed the Golden Gate, which had been closed by a court order since 2003.
The Jerusalem Wakf Council announced on Sunday that a section of the Temple Mount that was closed by Israel in 2003 will remain open, even after the arrest of two of its senior officials.
The Palestinians and the Jordanians have set up a joint council for the administration of the Temple Mount and other Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem in an effort to preemptively torpedo the advancement of US President Donald Trump’s regional peace plan.
The United States Consulate General in Jerusalem, which serves Palestinians, will be absorbed into the new US Embassy to Israel in March, a US official said on Tuesday, giving a date for a merger that has been condemned by Palestinians.
Dozens of Palestinians tried to force their way into the Golden Gate site on the Temple Mount on Tuesday, triggering scuffles with police officers, eyewitnesses said.
Palestinian worshipers clashed with Israeli police on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount on Tuesday, trying to force their way into an area of the flash-point holy compound that has been closed for years. Police said 19 Palestinians were arrested.
The administration of US President Donald Trump confirmed on Friday that it has ended security funding and training to the Palestinian Authority, claiming that Ramallah itself had requested that the aid be cut in order to circumvent the jurisdiction of US courts.
Israel and the US blocked on Monday a Palestinian attempt to gain observer status for the year on the UN-linked Conference on Disarmament (CD), arguing that only states are eligible for this privilege.
The Trump administration on Wednesday dismissed as ‘inaccurate’ an Israeli TV report that said its forthcoming peace plan would offer Palestinians a state in most of the West Bank, with parts of East Jerusalem as its capital.
The United Nations must provide the Palestinians with an international protection force, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in New York on Monday, a day before taking over the chairmanship of the Group of 77, the largest bloc of United Nation member states.
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said Sunday that the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan – the ‘deal of the century’ – will be presented ‘within the next several months.’
The United States and Israel are working to block a renewed Palestinian Authority drive to become a member state of the United Nations.
The Palestinian Authority announced on Sunday that its security forces have thwarted attempts by Palestinians to sell lands and houses in the West Bank and east Jerusalem to Jewish buyers, and the PA’s Preventive Security Service said in a rare statement that it has arrested 44 Palestinians suspected of involvement in the alleged real estate transactions.
Iran is determined to fight against US President Donald Trump’s anticipated Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, parliament speaker Ali Larijani said Tuesday, according to the semi-official news agency ISNA.
The US ‘remains committed to sharing its vision for peace with Israel, the Palestinians and other regional and international stakeholders at the appropriate time,’ US Ambassador David Friedman said on Monday.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed the US and Israel in a speech to Muslim leaders on Sunday at an international conference in Tehran. He accused the ‘world’s arrogant powers’ – which he said are led by ‘the Great Satan’ – of wilting in the face of a rising Islamic awakening in the Middle East. ‘The Zionist regime is much weaker than before,’ he claimed, pointing to what he said were Israeli defeats at the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 and Palestinians in Gaza in 2009.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday said that Russia was willing to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians, and that stability in the region could not be reached until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was resolved.