Tag Archives: Palestine

Trump visit seen as long shot to revive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking

A labourer stands on a crane as he hangs an American flag to a street post, in preparation for the upcoming visit of U.S. President Donald Trump to Israel, in Jerusalem May 18, 2017. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

By Matt Spetalnick and Jeffrey Heller

WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Just four months after taking office, Donald Trump will make the earliest foray into Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking by any U.S. president next week. But with mounting obstacles at home and abroad, he faces long odds of succeeding where more experienced predecessors have failed.

Even as last-minute changes are being made to Trump’s ambitious Middle East itinerary, the trip has been complicated by Israeli concerns about his sharing of sensitive intelligence with Russia that may have compromised an Israeli agent, and by his decision to hold off on a campaign promise to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Adding to those issues, disarray in the White House over Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey and swirling controversy over his aides’ contacts with Russia appear to have distracted from efforts to prepare the new president for what could be the most complex leg of his first international tour.

Trump has boasted that with his negotiating skills he can bring Israelis and Palestinians together to resolve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts and do “the ultimate deal”.

But officials on both sides see scant prospects for any major breakthrough in long-stalled negotiations during his 24-hour visit on Monday and Tuesday.

Even if Trump’s on-the-ground engagement may be premature, some experts say he can be expected to press Israeli and Palestinian leaders for conciliatory words if not gestures – and the two sides may struggle to accommodate him.

“The only variable that has changed is President Trump, and the fact that President Trump wants to do a deal,” said Robert Danin, a former adviser to the Middle East “Quartet” of international peace backers and now a senior analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

“Given the president’s proclivities, no one wants to get on his bad side,” he said.

The visit will be a significant foreign policy test for Trump, who has yet to demonstrate a firm grasp of the nuances of Middle East diplomacy. Top advisers he has tasked with nuts-and-bolts negotiations, led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, are also lacking experience.

The two leaders most needed to rejuvenate the peace process, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, have shown little inclination toward significant concessions – though experts say they have no choice but to cooperate with Trump.

White House aides insist Trump is getting up-to-speed on the issues and that the time could be right for his “disruptive” approach to challenge failed policies of the past.

Israeli officials appear unconvinced. Asked if he understood what Trump’s Middle East policy was, one senior official replied: “I’m not entirely sure they know what it is.”

NO PEACE PLAN

Flying in directly from his first stop in Saudi Arabia, Trump is unlikely to lay out Middle East peace proposals, not least because, as aides acknowledge, his administration has yet to craft a strategy.

There are also no plans for Trump – who will see Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Abbas in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank – to bring the two together, one senior U.S. official said. “We don’t think it’s the right time just yet,” the aide said.

The last round of peace talks collapsed in 2014, a key stumbling block being Israel’s settlement-building on occupied land that Palestinians want for a state.

While Israelis and Palestinians alike are uncertain what Trump will ask of them, experts believe he will be looking to coax them to make an explicit commitment to return to the table without pre-conditions, start work on a timetable for talks and consider mutual “confidence-building” steps.

Israeli officials have been especially unnerved by Trump. They did not expect any real pressure on the Palestinian issue after campaign rhetoric that promised a more pro-Israel approach than his predecessor Barack Obama, who had an acrimonious relationship with Netanyahu.

The Israeli leader, whose far-right coalition partners oppose the creation of a Palestinian state, has told his ministers he is waiting to hear more from Trump before making any proposals of his own.

Amid speculation that Washington could push for a regional peace conference, Netanyahu has conferred with advisers on what he would have to offer if he wants to draw in Saudi Arabia and Gulf states in a bid for broader Arab-Israeli rapprochement, Israeli officials said.

Trump, who has hosted Netanyahu and Abbas separately at the White House, caught the Israeli leader off guard in February when he urged him to “hold back on settlements for a bit”.

In another jolt to Netanyahu and his allies, senior administration officials said on Wednesday that Trump had ruled out any immediate relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, a campaign promise that had pleased Israelis but if implemented would upend decades of U.S. policy and make it all but impossible for the Palestinians to re-enter talks.

Trump remains committed to an embassy move and could reaffirm that without specifying a timeframe, one official said. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, a position not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the capital of their future state, along with Gaza and the West Bank.

PALESTINIANS COOPERATIVE BUT WARY

While welcoming Trump’s efforts and committing themselves to work with him, some Palestinian officials remain wary that he has yet to publicly back a two-state solution, the longtime bedrock of U.S. and international policy.

Trump said in February he was not necessarily wedded to that idea, saying he was happy with any deal that “both parties like”.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organization, said Palestinians were taking Trump’s efforts with “a very strong dose of healthy skepticism”.

U.S. officials said the administration is also seeking to enlist Israel’s Sunni Arab neighbors, who share Israeli concerns about Shi’ite Iran, in a broader regional peace process.

Some Gulf Arab diplomats have floated the notion of making a positive gesture toward Israel, possibly a limited upgrading of diplomatic and economic ties, in exchange for up-front concessions to the Palestinians.

Dennis Ross, a veteran former Middle East negotiator who has been consulted by Trump’s aides, said the president must avoid raising hopes for a quick resolution of the conflict that has eluded successive U.S. administrations.

“The president may be right, this is the ultimate deal,” he said, “but it’s definitely not just around the corner.”

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason in Washington, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Rinat Harash in Jerusalem; editing by Luke Baker and Mark Trevelyan)

Israeli forces kill Palestinian during clashes: Palestinian ministry, residents

A Palestinian protester hurls stones towards Israeli troops during clashes in the West Bank village of Beita, near Nablus May 12, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian during stone-throwing clashes in the occupied West Bank on Friday, residents and the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said about 100 Palestinians were involved in what she described as a violent riot during which they threw stones at Israeli soldiers. “In response to the threat the soldiers fired riot dispersal means,” she said.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the man killed had been shot in the chest. Residents of the West Bank village Nabi Saleh, near the city of Ramallah, said he was shot during stone-throwing clashes that erupted after Friday prayers.

At least 244 Palestinians have died during a wave of sporadic violence in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, that began in October 2015. At least 164 of them had launched stabbing, shooting or car ramming attacks, Israel says. Others died during clashes and protests.

In the same period of violence, 37 Israelis, two American tourists and a British student have been killed. The frequency of the attacks has slowed but has not stopped.

Israel has said the Palestinian leadership is inciting the violence. The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, denies incitement and says that, in many cases, Israel has used excessive force in thwarting attackers armed with rudimentary weapons.

(Reporting by Alis Sawafta and Maayan Lubell; Editing by Alison Williams)

Leading Hamas official says no softened stance toward Israel

FILE PHOTO: Veteran Hamas strategist Mahmoud Al-Zahar gestures during an interview with Reuters at his house in Gaza City April 29, 2014. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – One of Hamas’s most senior officials said on Wednesday a document published by the Islamist Palestinian group last week was not a substitute for its founding charter, which advocates Israel’s destruction.

Speaking in Gaza City, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a regular critic of Israel, said the political policy document announced in Qatar on May 1 by Hamas’s outgoing chief Khaled Meshaal did not contradict its founding covenant, published in 1988.

Trailed for weeks by Hamas officials, the document appeared to be an attempt to soften the group’s language toward Israel. But it still called for “the liberation of all of historical Palestine”, said armed resistance was a means to achieve that goal, and did not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

“The pledge Hamas made before God was to liberate all of Palestine,” Zahar said on Wednesday. “The charter is the core of (Hamas’s) position and the mechanism of this position is the document.”

Many Western countries classify Hamas as a terrorist group over its failure to renounce violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.

In its new document, Hamas said it agrees to a transitional Palestinian state within frontiers pre-dating the 1967 Middle East war but continues to oppose recognizing Israel’s right to exist and backs an armed struggle.

Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the rival Fatah movement that controls the Israeli-occupied West Bank, recognizes Israel and seeks a final peace agreement based on those lines.

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits the region later this month, and a summit to restart peace talks stalled since 2014 has been mentioned in media reports.

Zahar denied that Hamas was trying to align itself with Fatah’s position.

“When people say that Hamas has accepted the 1967 borders, like others, it is an offense to us,” he said.

“We have reaffirmed the unchanging constant principles that we do not recognize Israel; we do not recognize the land occupied in 1948 as belonging to Israel and we do not recognize that the people who came here (Jews) own this land.

“Therefore, there is no contradiction between what we said in the document and the pledge we have made to God in our (original) charter,” Zahar added.

On Sunday, Netanyahu symbolically tossed Hamas’s “hateful document” into a waste paper bin and said the group was trying to fool the world.

(Editing by Ori Lewis and Catherine Evans)

Palestinian hunger strike heightens tension with Israel

Palestinians take part in a protest in support of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails, in Gaza City May 9, 2017. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

By Luke Baker and Nidal al-Mughrabi

JERUSALEM/GAZA (Reuters) – A hunger strike by more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners over their treatment in Israeli jails has turned into a heated dispute over whether the leader of the protest secretly broke the fast, and whether Israel tempted him to do so.

The strike, which began on April 17, followed a call by Marwan Barghouti, the most high-profile Palestinian in Israeli detention, for a protest against poor conditions and an Israeli policy of detention without trial that has applied to thousands of prisoners since the 1980s.

Barghouti, a leader of the Fatah movement, has seen his popularity grow among Palestinians since he was convicted of murder over the killing of Israelis during the second intifada and sentenced in 2004 to five life terms. Surveys show many Palestinians want him to be their next president.

While hunger strikes are not uncommon among the 6,500 Palestinians in Israeli jails, many of whom were convicted of attacks or planning attacks against Israel, this is one of the largest yet. If sustained it could present a challenge to Israel ahead of a visit by U.S. President Donald Trump on May 22.

It is also likely to raise tensions between Israel and the Palestinians as the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem approaches in early June.

At the start of the strike, a group of Israeli settlers held a barbecue in the parking lot of one of the prisons, an apparent effort to taunt those inside who were not eating.

On Sunday, Israel’s public security minister, who says the strike is politically motivated, accused Barghouti of secretly consuming cookies and chocolate bars, and the government released footage from the Israel Prison Service.

“He lied to the Palestinian public when he claimed to be striking,” said Gilad Erdan. “Israel will not give in to extortion and pressure from terrorists.”

FORCE FEEDING

The footage, two videos shot days apart from a camera mounted on the ceiling of the cell, do not conclusively show that the prisoner is Barghouti, 58, and it is not entirely clear what he is eating or whether he is doing so.

On Monday, following questions about how the video came to light, Erdan suggested Israeli prison guards had tempted Barghouti with the food. Since he is held in solitary confinement, he would not have been able to smuggle it in.

“You’ve got to understand, without me going into detail, that in order to lead him to this situation, a great many actions were taken,” Erdan told Army Radio. “They got results.”

Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, has denounced the video, saying it is an effort to discredit her husband, and suggested the footage may well have been taken in 2004.

“It was not surprising what the occupation did and the fabrications they have tried to spread,” she told Reuters. “Such an act has unveiled the ugly face of the Israeli occupation.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the health of the strikers was deteriorating and Israel needed to act.

“I am afraid some unfortunate things could happen to those prisoners which may complicate things further, therefore, I urge the Israeli government to accept their humanitarian demands,” he said during a news conference in Ramallah.

Fadwa and other wives and relatives have had no access to the hunger strikers, a situation the International Committee for the Red Cross, the United Nations and other organizations are trying to resolve with Israel.

She said ICRC officials told her the Israeli prison authority had prevented them from seeing her husband.

Suhair Zakout, a spokeswoman for the ICRC in Gaza, said the group had visited most of the prisoners taking part in the strike to check on their health and ensure Israel does not try to force them to eat.

Israel has resorted to force-feeding in the past, even though Israel’s Medical Association opposes the policy as a form of torture. It has urged Israeli doctors not to carry it out.

(Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Netanyahu tosses Hamas policy paper on Israel into waste bin

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem May 7, 2017. REUTERS/Oded Balilty/Pool

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday symbolically tossed into a bin a Hamas policy paper published last week that set out an apparent softening of the Palestinian Islamist group’s stance toward Israel.

In a document issued last Monday, Hamas said it was dropping its longstanding call for Israel’s destruction, but said it still rejected the Jewish state’s right to exist and continued to back “armed struggle” against it.

The Israeli government has said the document aimed to deceive the world that Hamas was becoming more moderate.

Netanyahu, in a 97-second video clip aired on social media on Sunday, said that news outlets had been taken in by “fake news”. Sitting behind his desk with tense music playing in the background, he said that in its “hateful document”, Hamas “lies to the world”. He then pulled up a waste paper bin, crumpled the document into a ball and tossed it away.

“The new Hamas document says that Israel has no right to exist, it says every inch of our land belongs to the Palestinians, it says there is no acceptable solution other than to remove Israel… they want to use their state to destroy our state,” Netanyahu said.

Founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned Egyptian Islamist movement, Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2007 and has carried out hundreds of armed attacks in Israel and in Israeli-occupied territories.

Many Western countries classify Hamas as a terrorist group over its failure to renounce violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.

Outgoing Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said Hamas’s fight was not against Judaism as a religion but against what he called “aggressor Zionists”. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, was named on Saturday to succeed Meshaal.

Netanyahu concluded his clip by saying that “Hamas murders women and children, it’s launched tens of thousands of missiles at our homes, it brainwashes Palestinian kids in suicide kindergarten camps,” before binning the document.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Bill to declare Israel a Jewish state back on national agenda

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem May 7, 2017. REUTERS/Oded Balilty/Pool

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s cabinet breathed new life on Sunday into efforts to anchor in law the country’s status as a Jewish state, legislation Palestinians have described as an obstacle to peace.

A ministerial committee approved a revised version of a bill first proposed in 2011 that declares the “State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people”, its author, Avi Dichter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, wrote on Facebook.

The legislation still has to go through further drafting by the Justice Ministry and pass several votes in parliament in what could be a lengthy process.

But the cabinet-level step — two weeks before a visit by U.S. President Donald Trump — could help Netanyahu shore up relations with far-right members of his government and underpin his campaign to press Palestinians to recognize Israel as the “nation-state” of the Jewish people.

Such acknowledgement has been a key Netanyahu demand for reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that collapsed in 2014 and which Trump has pledged to pursue.

Palestinians say accepting Netanyahu’s call could deny Palestinian refugees of past wars any right of return. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has characterized such “nation-state” legislation as putting “obstacles in the way of peace”.

In meetings in Israel, Trump will discuss how he plans to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a goal that has evaded many previous administrations. He is also scheduled to meet Abbas during the trip.

Critics have described the proposed legislation, which also declares that the “right to self determination” in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people” as impinging on the rights of its Arab minority, who make up some 20 percent of the population.

Opponents said that the bill designates only Hebrew as the country’s official language, although it requires government services and forms to be available in Arabic as well.”The nation-state law is tyranny by the majority and ‘legally’ turns us into second-class citizens,” Arab legislator Ayman Odeh wrote on Twitter after the cabinet committee’s decision.

Dichter, however, called the move “an important step in entrenching our identity, not only in consciousness of the world but primarily in our own minds”.

The revised legislation appeared to soften previous language that would have given Jewish values prominence in law-making and judicial decisions.

Centrists in Netanyahu’s government have argued a “nation-state” bill is unnecessary, noting the 1948 Declaration of Independence already proclaimed a Jewish state. They have accused him of pandering to right-wingers, and past versions of the legislation failed to make it through parliament.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Trump vows to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) stands in the Oval Office with Chief of Staff Reince Priebus following an interview with Reuters at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Jeff Mason and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump vowed on Wednesday to work to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians as he hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House but offered no clues about how he could break the deadlock and revive long-stalled negotiations.

In their first face-to-face meeting, Trump pressed Palestinian leaders to “speak in a unified voice against incitement” to violence against Israelis but he stopped short of explicitly recommitting his administration to a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict, a longstanding bedrock of U.S. policy.

“We will get this done,” Trump told Abbas during a joint appearance at the White House, saying he was prepared to act a mediator, facilitator or arbitrator between the two sides.

Abbas quickly reasserted the goal of a Palestinian state as vital to any rejuvenated peace process, reiterating that it must have its capital in Jerusalem with borders based on pre-1967 lines. Israel rejects a full return to 1967 borders as a threat to its security.

Trump faced deep skepticism at home and abroad over his chances for a breakthrough with Abbas, not least because the new U.S. administration has yet to articulate a cohesive strategy for restarting the moribund peace process.

Abbas’ White House talks follow a mid-February visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who moved quickly to reset ties after a frequently combative relationship with the Republican president’s predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama.

Trump sparked international criticism at the time when he appeared to back away from support for a two-state solution, saying he would leave it up to the parties themselves to decide. The goal of an Palestinian state living peacefully beside Israel has been the position of successive U.S. administrations and the international community

The meeting with Abbas, the Western-backed head of the Palestinian Authority, was another test of whether Trump, in office a little more than 100 days, is serious about pursuing what he has called the “ultimate deal” of Israeli-Palestinian peace that eluded his predecessors.

“I’ve always heard that perhaps the toughest deal to make is between the Israelis and the Palestinian,” Trump said on Wednesday. “Let’s see if we can prove them wrong.”

But he offered no new policy prescriptions.

LOW EXPECTATIONS

Abbas, speaking through a translator, told Trump that under “your courageous stewardship and your wisdom, as well as your great negotiations ability,” the Palestinians would be partners seeking a “historic peace treaty.”

The last round of U.S.-brokered peace talks collapsed in 2014.

Abbas said “it’s about time for Israel to end its occupation of our people and our land” – a reference to Jewish settlement building in the West Bank. Reaffirming his commitment to a two-state solution, he called on Israel to recognize Palestinian statehood just as Palestinians recognize the state of Israel.

Though expectations are low for significant progress, plans are being firmed up for Trump to visit the right-wing Israeli leader in Jerusalem and possibly Abbas in the West Bank, targeted for May 22-23, according to people familiar with the matter. U.S. and Israeli officials have declined to confirm the visit.

Questions have been raised about Trump’s choice of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who entered the White House with no government experience, to oversee Middle East peace efforts, along with Trump’s longtime business lawyer, Jason Greenblatt, as on-the-ground envoy.

The administration seeks to enlist Israel’s Sunni Arab neighbors, who share Israeli concerns about Shi’ite Iran, to help rejuvenate Middle East peacemaking.

Abbas, who governs in the West Bank while Hamas militants rule Gaza, was under pressure at home to avoid making major concessions to Trump, especially with an ongoing hunger strike by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Palestinian officials say it will be hard for Abbas to return to the negotiating table without a long-standing pre-condition of a freeze on Jewish settlement expansion on land Israel occupied in 1967 which Palestinians want for a state.

Trump’s pro-Israel rhetoric during the 2016 election campaign raised concern among Palestinians about whether their leaders will get a fair hearing.

Trump’s promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, strongly opposed by Palestinians, has been shifted to the back burner, and he has asked Netanyahu to put unspecified limits on settlement activity.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Howard Goller and Jonathan Oatis)

Israel planning 15,000 more settlement homes in Jerusalem

The West Bank Jewish settlement of Ofra is photographed as seen from the Jewish settler outpost of Amona in the occupied West Bank, October 20, 2016. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/File Photo

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel intends to build 15,000 new settlement homes in East Jerusalem, the Housing Ministry said on Friday despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s request to “hold back” on settlements as part of a possible new push for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

A formal announcement of the settlement plan, quickly condemned by the chief Palestinian negotiator, could come around the time Trump is scheduled to visit Israel next month.

Israel views all of Jerusalem as its “eternal and indivisible capital”, but the Palestinians also want a capital there. Most of the world considers Jerusalem’s status an issue that must be decided through negotiations. The last peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in 2014.

Housing Minister Yoav Galant told Israel Radio that his ministry and the Jerusalem Municipality had been working on the plan for two years, with proposals for 25,000 units, 15,000 of which would be in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed.

“We will build 10,000 units in Jerusalem and some 15,000 within the (extended) municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. It will happen,” he said.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator, said Israel’s move was a systematic violation of international law and a “deliberate sabotage” of efforts to resume talks.

“All settlements in occupied Palestine are illegal under international law,” he said in a statement. “Palestine will continue to resort to international bodies to hold Israel, the occupation power, accountable for its grave violations of international law throughout occupied Palestine.”

Channel 2 news said an announcement on building could be made on “Jerusalem Day” which this year, according to the Hebrew calendar, falls on May 24, when Israel celebrates its capture of the eastern part of the city.

This year marks the 50th anniversary, with a large number of celebrations planned. Trump’s visit is expected to take place on or shortly after May 22.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they hope to establish in the occupied West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Trump told Reuters in an interview at the White House on Thursday that he wanted to see a peace deal.

“I want to see peace with Israel and the Palestinians,” he said. “There is no reason there’s not peace between Israel and the Palestinians – none whatsoever.”

The U.S. leader met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington in February and is to see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House on May 3.

In January, two days after Trump took office, Netanyahu said he was lifting restrictions on settlement construction in East Jerusalem, just as the city’s municipality approved building permits for hundreds of new homes.

During Barack Obama’s presidency, Netanyahu’s government came under repeated censure for building in settlements, which the previous U.S. administration saw as an obstacle to peace. Under Trump, Netanyahu expected more of a green light to ramp up settlement building, but it hasn’t been straightforward.

While Trump has said he does not think settlements are necessarily an obstacle to peace, he did directly ask Netanyahu during a White House press conference in February to “hold back on settlements for a little bit”.

In 2010, Israel announced its intent to build homes in East Jerusalem during a visit by then-Vice President Joe Biden, who condemned the plan. It caused huge embarrassment to Netanyahu, who suspended the plan before reintroducing it in 2013.

Most countries consider settlement activity illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel disagrees, citing biblical, historical and political connections to the land – many of which the Palestinians also claim – as well as security interests.

The East Jerusalem neighborhoods where building is planned are Givat Hamatos, East Talpiot, Ramot, Pisgat Zeev, Neve Yaakov, Ramot Shlomo, Gilo and Atarot. These areas extend in an arc from north to south around the eastern side of Jerusalem, forming something of a buffer with the West Bank.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; editing by Luke Baker and Mark Heinrich)

Palestinian Authority halts payments for Israeli electricity to Gaza: Israel

Palestinians walk on a road during a power cut in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip January 11, 2017. Picture taken January 11, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Palestinian Authority will no longer pay for the electricity Israel supplies to Gaza, Israeli officials said, a move that could lead to a complete power shutdown in the territory whose two million people already endure blackouts for much of the day.

Thursday’s decision was another sign of a hardening of Palestinian Authority policy towards its Hamas rivals, who control the enclave.

A senior U.N. official expressed concern about the deteriorating energy situation in Gaza and called for swift action by Israeli and Palestinian Authorities and the international community to ensure basic services keep running.

The Western-backed Authority and Hamas are in deadlock in a struggle over a unity deal that could loosen the Islamist group’s hold on the Gaza Strip, territory it won control of from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.

A Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, called the decision to halt the payments “a grave escalation and an act of madness”.

Israeli authorities deal with the PA on electrical and fuel supplies for Gaza because Israel does not engage with Hamas, which it regards as a terrorist organisation.

The PA has already taken several steps, such as taxing Israeli fuel it purchases for Gaza’s sole power plant — which has been unable to come up with the funds and stopped operating two weeks ago — to pressure Hamas into new Palestinian elections.

Regaining a measure of control over Gaza could empower Abbas politically as Israel and the Palestinians await a widely expected push by U.S. President Donald Trump for a revival of peace efforts that stalled in 2014.

“The Palestinian Authority has informed (us) it will immediately stop paying for the electricity that Israel supplies to Gaza through 10 power lines that carry 125 megawatts, or some 30 percent of Gaza’s electrical needs,” said a statement from COGAT, Israel’s military liaison agency with the PA.

With the generating plant off-line and Egyptian supplies via power lines notoriously spotty, Israeli electricity has been vital, keeping power on for Gazans, although for only four to six hours a day. Hospitals, ministries and many wealthier apartment blocks have generators but fuel is costly.

“With power outages at 20 hours a day and emergency fuel supplies running out, basic services are grinding to a halt,” Robert Piper, the U.N. coordinator for humanitarian aide and development activities, said in a statement.

Spokesmen for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Energy Authority declined comment.

Israel charges the PA 40 million shekels ($11 million) a month for the electricity, deducting the sum from the transfers of Palestinian tax revenues that Israel collects on behalf of the Authority.

Israeli sources said Gaza needs 400 megawatts of power to ensure full 24-hour supply to its residents.

That goal is not being met even when the power plant is operational. It usually produces 60 megawatts, added to the 125 megawatts supplied by Israel and 25 megawatts that come across power lines from Egypt.

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Pritha Sarkar)

Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails begin hunger strike

A Palestinian protester hurls back a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops during clashes following a protest in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta

GAZA/RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails began a hunger strike on Monday in response to a call by prominent prisoner Marwan Barghouti, widely seen as a possible future Palestinian president.

Palestinians termed the open-ended strike a protest against poor conditions and an Israeli policy of detention without trial that has been applied against thousands since the 1980s.

Israel said the move by the prisoners, many of whom were convicted of attacks or planning attacks against Israel, was politically motivated.

The protest was led by Barghouti, 58, a leader of the mainstream Fatah movement of the Palestine Liberation Organization, serving five life terms after being convicted of murder in the killing of Israelis in a 2000-2005 uprising.

The strike, if sustained, could present a challenge to Israel and raise tensions between the two sides as the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip approaches in June.

Israeli troops and settlers pulled out of the Gaza Strip, now run by Hamas Islamists, in 2005, but peace talks on the creation of a Palestinian state collapsed with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2014.

In an opinion piece in the New York Times on Monday, Barghouti said a strike was the only way to gain concessions after other options had failed.

“Through our hunger strike, we seek an end to these abuses … Palestinian prisoners and detainees have suffered from torture, inhumane and degrading treatment and medical negligence. Some have been killed while in detention,” he wrote.

Israeli and Palestinian media reports said Barghouti had been moved from the prison where he was being held in central Israel to another in the north and was isolated from other prisoners. The Prisons Service did not initially comment on his status.

FIELD HOSPITAL

Israel denies Palestinian inmates are mistreated, and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said the Barghouti-led protest was “prompted by internal Palestinian politics and therefore includes unreasonable demands”.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “The Palestinian prisoners are not political prisoners. They are convicted terrorists and murderers. They were brought to justice and are treated properly under international law.”

Palestinian officials said some 1,500 inmates affiliated with all political factions including rival Fatah and Hamas were taking part in the protest. An Israel Prisons Service spokesman said some 1,100 inmates at eight jails had joined the strike.

Almost 6,500 Palestinians are being held in 22 Israeli prisons, said Qadoura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club that advocates on behalf of the inmates.

The Prisoners’ Club said a main demand was for Israel to halt detention without trial for some 500 Palestinians currently being held, and for an end to solitary confinement.

The strikers also want better medical treatment and that disabled inmates or those suffering chronic illness be freed, access to more television channels and more phone contact with relatives and more family visits.

The strike prompted a large rally in Gaza and a protest broke out near the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem where Palestinian demonstrators clashed with Israeli forces.

Palestinians consider brethren held in Israeli jails as national heroes. Long-term mass hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners are rare, but in past cases of individual inmates who stopped eating for weeks, detention terms were shortened or not renewed after they were hospitalized in critical condition.

Erdan said a field hospital would be erected next to one prison – an apparent move to pre-empt transfers to civilian medical facilities, which could draw wider media attention.

Abbas, 82, said in a statement that efforts would continue to secure prisoners’ freedom. He condemned what he called Israel’s intransigence in the face of “fair” prisoner demands.

(Writing by Nidal Almughrabi; Editing by Ori Lewis, Jeffrey Heller and Alison Williams)