Israeli leader vows to push ahead with annexing West Bank
Saudi Arabia announces rejection of annexation
JERUSALEM, May 26, (Agencies): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday pledged to annex parts of the occupied West Bank in the coming months, vowing to move ahead with the explosive plan despite a growing chorus of condemnations by key allies.
The Palestinians, with wide international backing, seek the entire West Bank as the heartland of a future independent state. Annexing large chunks of this territory would all but destroy the faint remaining hopes of a twostate solution.
In an apparent reference to the friendly administration of President Donald Trump, Netanyahu said Israel had a “historic opportunity” to redraw the Mideast map that could not be missed. Israeli media quoted him as saying he would act in July.
“This is an opportunity that we will not let pass,” he told members of his conservative Likud party. He added that the “historic opportunity” to annex the West Bank had never before occurred since Israel’s founding in 1948.
The comments threatened to push Israel closer to a confrontation with
Arab and European partners, and could deepen what is becoming a growing partisan divide over Israel in Washington.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. It has settled nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers in the territory, but never formally claimed it as an Israeli territory due to stiff international opposition.
But the Trump administration has taken a much softer line toward Israeli settlements than its predecessors. Trump’s Mideast team is dominated by advisers with close ties to the settlements, and his Mideast plan, unveiled in January, envisions leaving some 30% of the territory under permanent Israeli control while giving the Palestinians expanded autonomy in the rest of the area. The Palestinians have rejected the plan, saying it is unfairly biased toward Israel.
With Trump’s re-election prospects uncertain this November, Israeli hardliners have urged Netanyahu to move ahead with annexation quickly. The Israeli leader’s new coalition deal includes an official clause allowing him to present his annexation plan to the government in July.
Netanyahu told party members in a closed-door meeting that “we have a target date for July and we don’t intend to change it,” Likud officials said.
The plan has already exposed a partisan divide in Washington. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee in the US presidential elections, recently said that annexation would “choke off” hopes for a two-state solution. 18 Democratic senators warned in a letter this week that annexation could harm US-Israeli ties.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said annexation would violate international law and vowed to use “all our diplomatic capacities” to stop it.
Closer to home, the Palestinians last week cut off security ties — a valuable tool in a shared struggled against Islamic militants — with Israel to protest the annexation plan.
Saudi Arabia, an influential Arab country announced its “rejection of the Israeli measures and plans to annex Palestinian lands.”
The Arab League has condemned it as a “war crime,” and both Jordan and
Egypt — the only two Arab countries at peace with Israel — have harshly criticized it.
Netanyahu spoke a day after beginning his trial on corruption charges.
The prime minister launched a blistering tirade against the country’s legal system when he arrived at court, accusing police, prosecutors and media of conspiring to oust him. As he spoke, hundreds of supporters cheered outside.
Speaking to Likud on Monday, Netanyahu said he was “very moved” by the support.
Critics have said his attacks on the justice system risk undermining the country’s democratic foundations.
Also:
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: The crowded Gaza Strip recorded its first death from the coronavirus on Saturday, officials said, amid fears an outbreak could paralyze the territory’s already overstretched health care system.
The Palestinian health ministry said the deceased was a 77-year-old woman who had underlying health problems and had been placed at a special field hospital near the Rafah border crossing point upon arriving from Egypt.
Gaza’s authorities, led by the militant group Hamas, reported 35 confirmed new cases this week, bringing the total to 55. All of the infected have been in designated quarantine and isolation facilities hosting returnees from abroad. There were no reports of community transmission of the virus.
Gaza’s health care system is fraying under the weight of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, internal Palestinian division and repeated wars and skirmishes between Israel and Palestinian militant groups.
Home to 2 million people, the Gaza Strip has only a little over 60 ventilators and a chronic shortage of medication.
Since mid-March, Hamas has enforced mandatory quarantining at hotels, clinics and schools for all residents returning via Israel and Egypt. With the recent spike of cases, Hamas said it’s closing Gaza’s borders for all arrivals until the end of June.
Palestinian Prime Minister Dr Mohammad Shtayyeh said life will be back to normal at all government bodies as from the morning of this Wednesday provided that everybody comply with the guidelines related to combat against coronavirus.
Mosques and churches will reopen in the early hours of tomorrow Tuesday after conducting the necessary sanitization, he told reporters on Monday.
He reminded the worshippers of the need to perform ablution at home, put on facemasks, take their own prayer rugs with them and keep away from each other.
Commercial businesses and industrial institutions will be allowed to resume operation as of Tuesday morning, Dr Shtayyeh said, noting that courts and nurseries will reopen after Eid Al-Fitr holiday.
The public transport continues operation normally and the restrictions on movement among governorates will be lifted as per the safety protocol of the health ministry.
The prime minister added that the Ministry of Health will issue in the coming couple of days certain guidelines for the reopening the restaurants, cafes, health clubs and wedding halls.