Palestine

RAMALLAH, Nov 14 (NNN-WAFA) – Palestinian officials slammed U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s reported decision, to visit Israeli settlement in the West Bank, calling the planned visit “a challenge to international consensus.”

“The visit will be a challenge to the positions of all previous U.S. administrations, that emphasised the illegality of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories,” said Palestinian Minister of Civil Affairs, Hussein al-Sheikh, in a press statement.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian motorist fired a pistol at Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday and was killed by them, a military spokesman said, and Palestinians identified the dead man as an officer in their security forces.

There were no Israeli casualties in the incident at a roadside military position near the Palestinian city of Nablus.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Jewish settler leaders prayed on Monday for U.S. President Donald Trump’s re-election, citing his support for Israel, during a ceremony at a biblical tomb in the occupied West Bank that has been a flashpoint of conflict with the Palestinians.

“We have come to bless President Trump, both for the past, to thank him, but also for the future, that he succeeds in the coming election,” Yishai Fleisher, spokesman for the Hebron settlers, said at the Cave of the Patriarchs burial site.

RAMALLAH, Oct 29 (NNN-WAFA) – Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, called on UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, to hold urgent consultations on convening an international peace conference.

Abbas sent Guterres a letter, asking him to coordinate with the Quartet on the Middle East and the UN Security Council, to hold the conference.

The letter called on the majority of the council’s superpowers, “to start preparing at the beginning of next year, for an international conference for peace in the Middle East.”

JERICHO, West Bank (Reuters) - Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Israel on Sunday for treatment of a worsening case of COVID-19, the Palestine Liberation Organization said.

Witnesses said Erekat, 65, was on a stretcher when he was placed inside an Israeli ambulance outside his home in Jericho, in the occupied West Bank. Erekat, who is also secretary-general of the PLO, disclosed on Oct. 8 that he had contracted coronavirus.

RAMALLAH, Oct 17 (NNN-WAFA) – Dozens of Palestinians were wounded, by rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas, in clashes with Israeli soldiers, in the West Bank yesterday, medical sources, said.

Witnesses said that, clashes broke out when the Israeli army dispersed the anti-settlement protests, held every Friday, in several villages in the West Bank.

Medical sources said, Israeli soldiers wounded three Palestinians with rubber-coated metal bullets, in the village of Burqa, in the east of the city of Ramallah.

RAMALLAH, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye on Monday urged the European Union to play an active role in the future political process related to the Palestinian cause.

Ishtaye made the call during his online meeting with the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs, attended by 80 people representing different countries and parties in Europe, according to a press statement by the prime minister.

RAMALLAH, Oct 10 (NNN-WAFA) – A Palestinian minister, said that, the Palestinian Authority did not ask for mediation, to resolve its tax dues crisis with Israel.

“There is no mediation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, regarding the tax dues, and we did not ask for anyone’s intervention,” said Minister of Civil Affairs, Hussein al-Sheikh.

Al-Sheikh’s statement came, in response to a Saudi Arabian newspaper report, that quoted a Palestinian source as saying, the Palestinians had asked Qatar to mediate in the crisis.

RAMALLAH, Oct 4 (NNN-WAFA) – A senior Palestinian official said, Israel is implementing its plan of annexing large parts of the West Bank by intensifying settlement’s expansion.

“Israel’s plan to build 5,400 new units is an actual implementation of the rejected annexation plan, and Israel haven’t stopped the annexation plan as it had claimed before,” said Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of Palestine Liberation Organisation Executive Committee, during his interview with official Voice of Palestine radio.

RAMALLAH, Oct 3 (NNN-WAFA) – Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, on Friday declared an extension of the state of emergency by 30 days, in the Palestinian territories, in a bid to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The extension starts today.

In a presidential decree, Abbas urged the concerned authorities “to continue to take all necessary measures to face the dangers, resulting from the virus, protect public health, and achieve security and stability.”