AMMAN: The visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House Wednesday has done little to raise Palestinian expectations for progress in the half-a-century-old conflict.
Politicians, academics and artists interviewed by Arab News were pessimistic about any change in course by the Donald Trump administration.
Some have argued that upholding the status quo might itself be a sign of progress in today’s highly pro-Israel Washington. Both the White House and Congress seem to be fiercely pro-Israel and the only discernible differences between them are in tone rather than content.
Even the fact that the Palestinian president has been invited to the White House is seen by some as a double-edged sword.
“Abbas would do well if he can get out of Washington without being forced to make concessions,” said a senior Palestinian official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Abbas’ advance team included chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, who is also the secretary-general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) executive committee. It also included Majed Faraj, the head of the General Intelligence Service, and Muhammad Mustafa, the deputy finance minister and head of the Palestinian Investment Fund.
The three were hosted in Washington by the new director of the PLO mission in Washington, Hussam Zomlot, who took on his position in the US capital on April 1. Zomlot, a close adviser to Abbas, was elected last November to the powerful Revolutionary Council of Fatah, receiving the sixth highest votes to the 100-strong policy making body.
Zomlot refused to comment on the preparations for the summit.
“Things are very sensitive here and we are consciously being tight-lipped,” he told Arab News.
Oraib Rantawi, director of the Al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman, believes that if any Palestinian-US summit is to be successful, the outcome would be based on several issues.
“They are 1967 borders, East Jerusalem as part of the occupied territories, serious negotiations (on a) settlement freeze, a declared timeline and a clear reference to the talks,” he told Arab News by e-mail.
Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad, the head of Fatah’s International Relations Department, placed the onus on what Palestinians expect from the US president.
“President Trump will have to clarify whether he is supporting a real solution that will end the occupation and make it clear whether the US Embassy will be moved to Jerusalem or not — such an action will affect the peace process and the attempts to revive it dramatically,” he told Arab News.
Palestinian legislative representative Bernard Sabella is concerned that Trump will advocate a regional rather than a narrow Palestinian plan. Speaking to Arab News, the representative of Jerusalem in the Palestinian Legislative Council said that Trump’s priority will be addressing Israel’s needs.
“He will push President Abbas to declare an end to hostilities and to act pragmatically so as to help restart the stalled peace talks.”
Sabella does, however, believe that Palestinians are much more interested in the ongoing prisoners’ hunger strike than the meetings in Washington.
Fadwa Barghouti, a Palestinian lawyer and wife of the hunger strike’s leader, told journalists Sunday that parallel to the meeting in Washington, Palestinians will be protesting Israeli prison conditions throughout the occupied territories.
“We are hoping that a clear and loud statement will be heard from Palestinian protesters about the need to respond to the prisoners’ humanitarian demands,” she said.
Whether the Palestinian-US summit will be successful depends on the direction that the Trump administration takes. Trump has stated, both as a candidate and as president that he hopes to oversee the “ultimate deal” in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
In March, he sent his envoy Jason Greenblatt to the region. The envoy met separately with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and he also attended the Arab Summit held in Jordan.
Some Palestinians are worried about the so-called Greenblatt plan, which, according to Palestinian sources, mostly reflects the Israeli demands of the need for Palestinians to recognize Israel as the homeland of Jews and to stop supporting families of Palestinian prisoners.
In response to the US-Israeli demands, Palestinians have dug up the 1948 position of the Truman administration in which the US president refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. As to the financial support to the families of Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian team has gathered information that shows that Israel itself continues to provide stipends from its social security department to families of prisoners who are Israeli citizens or residents of East Jerusalem.
Skepticism toward the upcoming talks has also been voiced by many intellectuals and artists.
Kamel Elbasha, a well- known Palestinian actor, told Arab News that he has long lost interest in political issues.
“The reality is that everything is in the hands of politicians who are in the service of Israel … Any international meeting that Israel has any connection to will serve its racist policies and perpetuate its terrorizing presence,” he said.
A professor at Birzeit University told Arab News that he sees no reason for Israel to want to be involved in any serious negotiations.
“Why should they? They are creating facts on the ground and no one is forcing them to do anything about ending the occupation,” said the professor who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The challenges facing Abbas are not easy as he has to achieve enough in his meeting with Trump to reinstall trust in talks that most Palestinians have lost hope in.
Palestinians have low expectations for the Abbas-Trump meeting
Palestinians have low expectations for the Abbas-Trump meeting
Gaza’s living conditions worsen as strong winds and hypothermia kill 5
- Hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were blown away or heavily damaged, the UN humanitarian office reported
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Strong winter winds collapsed walls onto flimsy tents for Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, killing at least four people, hospital authorities said Tuesday.
Dangerous living conditions persist in Gaza after more than two years of devastating Israeli bombardment and aid shortfalls. A ceasefire has been in effect since Oct. 10. But aid groups say that Palestinians broadly lack the shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.
The dead include two women, a girl and a man, according to Shifa Hospital, Gaza City’s largest, which received the bodies.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday a 1-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight, while the spokesman for the UN’s children agency said over 100 children and teenagers have been killed by “military means” since the ceasefire began.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military said it exchanged fire Tuesday with six people spotted near its troops deployed in southern Gaza, killing at least two of them in western Rafah.
Family mourns relatives killed by wall collapse
Three members of the same family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 8-meter (26-foot) high wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area along the Mediterranean shore of Gaza City, Shifa Hospital said. At least five others were injured.
Their relatives on Tuesday began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.
“The world has allowed us to witness death in all its forms,” Bassel Hamouda said after the funeral. “It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip.”
A second woman was killed when a wall fell on her tent in the western part of the city, Shifa Hospital said.
Hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were blown away or heavily damaged, the UN humanitarian office reported.
The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and hygiene items across Gaza, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The majority of Palestinians live in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to rubble during the war. When storms strike the territory, Palestinian rescue workers warn people against seeking shelter inside damaged buildings for fears of collapse. Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the truce.
In the central town of Zawaida, Associated Press footage showed inundated tents Tuesday morning, with people trying to rebuild their shelters.
Yasmin Shalha, a displaced woman from the northern town of Beit Lahiya, stood against winds that lifted the tarps of tents around her as she stitched hers back together with needle and thread. She said it had fallen on top of her family the night before, as they slept.
“The winds were very, very strong. The tent collapsed over us,” the mother of five told AP. “As you can see, our situation is dire.”
On the shore in southern Gaza, tents were swept into the Mediterranean. Families pulled what was left from the sea, while some built sand barriers to hold back rising water.
“The sea took our mattresses, our tents, our food and everything we owned,” Shaban Abu Ishaq said, as he dragged part of his tent out of the sea in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis.
Mohamed Al-Sawalha, a 72-year-old man from the northern refugee camp of Jabaliya, said the conditions most Palestinians in Gaza endure are barely livable.
“It doesn’t work neither in summer nor in winter,” he said of the tent. “We left behind houses and buildings (with) doors that could be opened and closed. Now we live in a tent. Even sheep don’t live like we do.”
Residents aren’t able to return to their homes in Israeli-controlled areas of the Gaza Strip.
Child death toll in Gaza rises
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the 1-year-old in the central town of Deir Al-Balah was the seventh fatality due to the cold conditions since winter started. Others included a baby just seven days old and a 4-year-old girl, whose deaths were announced Monday.
The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says more than 440 people were killed by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire went into effect. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
UNICEF spokesman James Elder said Tuesday at least 100 children under the age of 18 — 60 boys and 40 girls — have been killed since the truce began due to military operations, including drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, reflect incidents where enough details have been compiled to warrant recording, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He said hundreds of children have been wounded.
While “bombings and shootings have slowed” during the ceasefire, they have not stopped, Elder told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from Gaza City. “So what the world now calls calm would be considered a crisis anywhere else,” he said.
Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been struggling to keep the cold weather and storms at bay while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly needed during the winter months. It’s the third winter since the war between Israel and Hamas started on Oct. 7, 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people and abducted 251 others into Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 71,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.
