by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Ramallah : Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday laid a wreath at the mausoleum of Yaser Arafat, the Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and the first President of the Palestinian Authority, soon after arriving here.
The mausoleum complex consists of Arafat’s burial chamber, a prayer pavilion and landscaped gardens — all situated in a 6,550 sq. m. site.
Palestine Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah received Modi as the latter alighted from a chopper that brought him to Ramallah from Amman, Jordan. This is the first ever prime ministerial visit from India to Palestine.
Modi will hold talks with Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas following which a number of agreements are going to be signed.
This will be the fourth meeting between Modi and Abbas after those on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in 2015, at the Paris climate summit later that year and at the Palestinian President’s visit to India last year.
The visit will reaffirm India’s foreign policy position that its relationship with one country is independent of its ties with a third country and will de-hyphenate Israel and Palestine after Modi’s standalone visit to Israel in July last year.
Palestine is the first leg of Modi’s three-nation tour of West Asia that will also see him going to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Muslim World, Social Round-up
The 30th African Union Summit, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Addis Ababa : Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will deliver a keynote speech at the 30th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU), kicked off in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa on Sunday.
President Abbas is set to deliver a speech and meet with several African officials on the sidelines of the summit, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
The summit is expected to present a draft resolution that affirms African rejection of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The draft will include aspects such as rejecting moving any embassy to Jerusalem, ending settlement activities and providing international protection for the Palestinian people.
The opening ceremony will feature among others, speeches and keynote addresses by Guinean President Alpha Conde, the AU outgoing chairperson; statement by Chairperson of the AU Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat; statement by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres; and a statement by Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit.
The 30th AU Summit, which is being held under the theme of “Winning the Fight against Corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation”, will wrap up its works on Monday, according to the AU website.
—AB/UNA-OIC
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Washington : The US has announced that it will withhold more than half of the funding it provides for a UN agency that supports Palestinians, about two weeks after President Donald Trump threatened to pull funding for the group.
Washington will withhold $65 million out of its scheduled $125 million payment to the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides humanitarian aid, education, social services and medical care to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, CNN reported.
Trump had said that the US could cut aid if Palestinians rejected peace efforts with Israel.
The decision drew condemnation from Palestinians and praise from Israel. The UN officials expressed deep concern and refugee groups worried about the humanitarian impact, particularly the potential for further destabilisation of a region already reeling from conflict in Syria.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on Tuesday that the move had nothing to do with “punishing” the Palestinians for their refusal to enter into negotiations with Israel, or their decision to push for a UN vote that resulted in global condemnation of the US decision to unilaterally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
“This is not aimed at punishing anyone,” Nauert said on Tuesday as she outlined the Trump administration’s decision to release $60 million in funding for the agency, while indefinitely withholding another $65 million.
The decision came two weeks after Trump complained that Washington receives “no appreciation or respect” in return for its aid.
“The move will have devastating consequences for vulnerable Palestinian refugees across the Middle East, including hundreds of thousands of refugee children in the West Bank and Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria,” said Jan Egeland, former Norwegian Foreign Minister and former UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “very concerned” about the impact on the region.
Nauert said the money was being withheld because the US would like to see reforms at UNRWA and added that Washington would also like to see other countries contribute more to the relief agency, which was founded in 1949 after the Arab-Israeli war, to deal specifically with Palestinian refugees.
PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi slammed the decision to withhold the funds, saying it targeted “the most vulnerable segment of the Palestinian people”, adding that it “will generate further instability throughout the region”.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, praising the move said: “UNRWA has proven time and again to be an agency that misuses the humanitarian aid of the international community and instead supports anti-Israel propaganda, perpetuates the plight of Palestinian refugees and encourages hate.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Muslim World, Social Media, Technology
By Qais Abu Samra,
Ramallah, Palestine: Facebook has unilaterally closed several pro-Palestine pages for “incitement” in a move Palestinians describe as a flagrant violation of the freedoms of opinion and expression.
According to Palestinian daily Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Israeli officials — including Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked — recently met with Facebook representatives who were threatened with prosecution if they did not meet Israeli demands to delete the accounts of several Palestinian activists.
Within the past four months alone, the paper reported, Shaked submitted 158 separate requests to Facebook officials for the deletion of content on different pro-Palestine Facebook pages.
According to the newspaper, Facebook has so far complied with almost all of Shaked’s requests.
Ghazi Bani Odeh of the Palestinian Center for the Development of Media Freedoms, an NGO, said Israel was relying on a series of “understandings” — reached with Facebook two years ago — to remove any content deemed “incitement to violence”.
Such an arrangement “profoundly affects free expression”, Bani Odeh told Anadolu Agency, going on to assert that “dozens” of pro-Palestine Facebook accounts had been recently shut down as a result.
Last year, he added, Facebook had closed the official page of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement after it posted a photograph of a rifle-toting Yasser Arafat.
According to Bani Odeh, Facebook has never taken similar action against what he described as “dozens” of Israeli Facebook pages known for inciting violence against Palestinians and their property.
—AA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
By Eshat Firat,
Nablus, Palestine: Israeli settlers used bulldozers to vandalize some agricultural lands belonging to Palestinian families in Nablus city’s Madama district in occupied West Bank on Wednesday.
Israeli soldiers intervened against Palestinian residents reacting against settlers’ vandalizing of their lands; five Palestinian journalists, including an Anadolu Agency photo journalist, who were trying to photograph the incident, were detained briefly by Israeli soldiers.
Anadolu Agency photo journalist Nidal Shtaya said soldiers seized journalists’ press cards and prevented them from taking pictures of the incident.
Madama district Mayor Ehab al-Qad told Anadolu Agency Israeli soldiers attacked local residents with rubber bullets and tear gas.
“The Jewish settlers are trying to seize these lands, vandalizing them with bulldozers. We call upon all legal institutions, media outlets and authorities to side with Palestinians against those Jewish settlers coming here and vandalizing the lands,” al-Qad said.
The incident came after an Israeli settler was shot dead on Tuesday evening by unknown gunmen, south of the West Bank city of Nablus.
Tension have been high in the Palestinian territories since Dec. 6, when U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, triggering condemnation and protest from across the Arab and Muslim world.
Since then, 12 Palestinians have been martyred — and thousands injured — in clashes with Israeli security forces in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.
Jerusalem remains at the heart of the perennial Middle East conflict, with Palestinians hoping that East Jerusalem — occupied by Israel since 1967 — might eventually serve as the capital of an independent Palestinian state.
—AA
