أرشيف الوسم : Jerusalem

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged the Israelis and the Palestinians to take a step back and return to negotiating terms before time runs out. “The Israeli and Palestinian people face a shared fate on shared land.  There is no erasing the other”, he told a UN committee on Palestinian rights. Ban also called “on the parties to …

The EU on Monday said that it deplored Israel’s plans to build new settlement blocs on occupied Palestinian territory but denied that it planned to impose sanctions on Israel. There was “no plan of this type”, EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini said when asked about the issue. “I saw an article in Haaretz which apparently referred to an internal …

Israel on Wednesday approved new settlement blocs in east Jerusalem despite mounting unrest over the issue, as US Secretary of State John Kerry gets ready to meet with Palestinian leaders over tensions in the occupied territory. The construction of the new settlement were announced only hours after Jewish extremists torched a mosque in West Bank, in a development that will …

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has accused Hamas of trying “to destroy” efforts to mediate national unity, alleging that the Palestinian movement was responsible for the bomb blasts in Gaza this past week. Speaking at the 10th death anniversary of veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Tuesday, Abbas said that Hamas was responsible for the Gaza attacks which targeted leaders of …

Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian on Tuesday during clashes in the West Bank as a wave of unrest is gripped the country, prompting thoughts of a fresh Palestinian uprising. A 22-year-old Palestinian was killed near Hebron as soldiers and around 150 Palestinians clashed near the Kiryat Arba. Since the new round of violence began five months ago, at …

The European Union’s new foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini warned that a new wave of Palestinian-Israeli violence could kick off if peace efforts between the two remain deadlocked. Speaking in Jerusalem, where she was on her first trip since taking up the post, Mogherini said that there needs to be a real “urgency” to advance the stagnant peace process. “The …

Israel promised Jordan that it won’t allow Jewish people to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, just as several Jewish extremists tried to advance to the compound. With clashes raging currently in many Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied east Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday spoke with Jordan’s King Abdullah II over the phone to personally assure …

Israeli plans to build new settler homes in east Jerusalem is likely to escalate into needless violence, a senior Palestinian official warned on Monday. “Such unilateral acts will lead to an explosion”, Jibril Rajoub, a senior member in Fatah, said at a press conference in Ramallah. Rajoub said that such a move might further inflame tensions in the city, which …

A new poll conducted by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs suggest that 75% Jewish Israelis oppose a potential state of Palestine based on the international borders in 1967, the division of Jerusalem, and Israel’s withdrawal from Jordan Valley. The body has been conducting opinion polls on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process since 2005; according to the latest poll it conducted …

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Monday warned against “provocations” as clashes broke out at Jerusalem’s holy sites, before condemning Israel for its settlement activity and calling for talks with the Palestinians. Ban was speaking at Jerusalem and Ramallah,where he met with Israeli and Palestinianleaders a day after the donor conference for Gaza was held in Egypt, where international donors …