Following the Trump administration’s almost total freeze on aid to the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (which supports Palestinians living in refugee camps), the US government announced Wednesday that it is officially resuming $150 million in economic aid to UNRWA.
The annual United States report on global human rights practices affirmed that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel, but reintroduced language that spoke of Israeli occupation of territory, two-states and gave a nod in the direction of Palestinian Authority rights to sections of Jerusalem.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to authorize illegal West Bank settler outposts if the upcoming March 23 election enables him to form a right-wing government, the Jerusalem Post reports. The PM made his election pledge Sunday as he visited the Givat Harel outpost in the West Bank’s Binyamin region.
New Hope rejects Palestinian statehood, has a goal of annexing West Bank settlements, but would uphold Israel’s pledge to suspend such sovereignty, party leader Gideon Sa’ar told the Washington Institute.
In a major decision released Friday, a pretrial chamber of the International Criminal Court determined that The Hague has jurisdiction to open a criminal investigation against Israel and the Palestinians for war crimes alleged to have taken place in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday announced that parliamentary and presidential elections will take place in the country for the first time in 15 years.
The foreign ministers of Egypt, Germany, France, and Jordan met in Cairo Monday to discuss reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as US President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office on January 20, the Times of Israel reports.
Portugal’s Foreign Minister Santos Silva has stated his country will move its embassy to Jerusalem if the city becomes the capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state, All Israel News (AIN) reports. Silva made his statement in an interview with the Jerusalem Post Monday, during a two-day official visit to Israel.
Israeli authorities are set to unveil previously off-limits structures within King Herod’s palace-fortress Herodium, which the tyrannical Roman-era leader interred as his enormous burial plot.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Thursday that the US will withdraw government funding from organizations it identifies as engaging in “hateful BDS conduct,” the Washington Examiner reports. Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) is an international Palestinian-led, non-violent movement that challenges what its founders describe as “Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Paris Saturday for the first stop on a planned seven-country tour.
The European Union has told the Palestinian Authority that it cannot have extra EU funding while Ramallah refuses to accept its own tax money collected by Israel, the Jerusalem Post reports. Anticipating Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced in May that he would cease all cooperation with Israel.
After numerous public pledges to bring about the first Palestinian national elections in 14 years, the possibility that residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will head to the ballot boxes appears to have petered out, again.
Two rival Palestinian political parties said on Thursday that they will hold general elections within six months.
On the anniversary of the worst-ever Islamic acts of terrorism, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a hopeful “historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East” with Bahrain establishing full diplomatic relations with Israel.
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner said on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s peace plan is an attempt to “save the two-state solution” because it stops Israel from further expanding its presence in the West Bank.
As an Israeli delegation prepared to depart the United Arab Emirates Tuesday after completing a first official visit, a senior Emirati official said that his government had received “assurances” that Israel will not advance its plan to annex large parts of the West Bank.
Israel will not proceed with applying sovereignty to parts of the West Bank without America’s support, and the US will not agree to it for “some time,” White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner said in a briefing with Middle Eastern media outlets on Monday.
Iran and Turkey lashed out at their regional rival the United Arab Emirates on Friday over its decision to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel, accusing it of betraying the Palestinian cause, even as much of the international community welcomed the move.
U.S. President Donald Trump has confirmed that Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to establish full diplomatic relations in a “historic diplomatic breakthrough.”