Palestine

29 March 2022; MEMO: The State of Qatar has opened a hospital specialising in the fitting of prosthetic limbs in the besieged Gaza Strip, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed has reported. The Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics was inaugurated yesterday in a ceremony attended by the Qatari Ambassador to Palestine, Mohammed Al-Emadi.

RAMALLAH, Mar 28 (NNN-WAFA) – Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, yesterday told visiting U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken that, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories must end through a political solution.

During a meeting with Blinken in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Abbas stressed the need to resolve all permanent status issues, including the refugee issue, and the release of all prisoners, under the auspices of the International Quartet and under international resolutions.

28 March 2022; MEMO:The High Follow-up Committee of the National Islamic Factions condemned yesterday the "normalisation summit" that brought the foreign ministers of Israel and Arab states together in the Negev. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Sameh Shoukry of Egypt, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed of the UAE, Abdullatif Al-Zayani of Bahrain and Nasser Bourita of Morocco were joined at the meeting by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

25 March 2022; MEMO: Israeli settlers, yesterday, attempted to storm a mosque in the Zeita Jammain village located in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Israel's Kan quoted a Palestinian source as saying that a group of settlers had thrown a "highly flammable substance at the entrance of the local mosque."

"The extremist settlers have scrawled anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab hate graffiti on the wall of a house nearby the mosque," the sources pointed out.

25 March 2022; MEMO: A church leader in Jerusalem has expressed concern over the steep decline of the holy city's Christian population over the years, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Wadih Abu Nassar, the spokesman for the Council of Heads of Catholic Churches in Jerusalem, said Christians constituted about 25 per cent of the population of Jerusalem in 1922. But the number has since fallen drastically to less than 1 per cent, he noted.

25 March 2022; MEMO: The Palestinian Authority will lose the municipal elections, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, Fakhri Al-Barghouti, announced yesterday, warning that the movement was heading "towards  the abyss."

"In light of its current reality, Fatah is in an unimaginable situation, and if we delay reform, we will pay the price more and more," Al-Barghouti told Al-Resalah.

24 March 2022; MEMO: A UN special rapporteur on Monday accused Israel of committing the crime of apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territories.

UN-appointed investigator, Michael Lynk, has been investigating rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories. He said the situation on the ground met the legal definition of apartheid set out by international law.

The system, he added, ensures Israeli domination over Palestinians.

22 March 2022; MEMO: Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, on Tuesday, called for halting Israel's looting of Palestinian water resources, Anadolu News Agency reports.

"How long will the world remain silent about the fate and life of our Palestinian people being held hostage by the [Israeli] occupier through its racist practices and its control over our resources and our legitimate rights?" Abbas said in a speech marking World Water Day.

23 March 2022; MEMO: The European Union has been withholding millions of euros in annual aid for the Palestinian Authority (PA) since 2020 after claiming school textbooks are anti-Semitic.

Since then, the European Commission has been conducting internal discussions on whether to condition its assistance to the PA on reforms to Palestinian textbooks.

The EU, the PA's largest single donor, helps pay the salaries of civil servants and fund numerous development projects and programmes.

RAMALLAH, Mar 22 (NNN-WAFA) – The Palestinian Central Elections Committee, yesterday condemned Israel, for arresting candidates racing for the Palestinian local council elections, in the West Bank.

The committee said in a statement that, the arrest is blatant interference in Palestinian internal affairs, calling for the immediate release of the detained candidates.

Yesterday, the Israeli army arrested Islam al-Taweel, who heads a list running for the mayor of the West Bank city of al-Bireh, bringing the number of detained nominees to three, during the past few days.