JERUSALEM: Israel set a higher threshold on Tuesday for any future vote on ceding parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, who want the eastern part of the city for a future independent state.
The amendment passed by the Israeli parliament to existing legislation raised from 61 to 80 the number of votes that would be required in the 120-seat Knesset to approve any proposal to hand over part of the city to “a foreign party.”
The amendment, long in the legislative pipeline, comes less than a month after US President Donald Trump angered the Palestinians, Middle East leaders and world powers by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
US negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014 but, if ever resumed, a special Israeli parliament majority to approve handing over parts of Jerusalem could complicate efforts to reach a peace accord.
Trump’s Dec. 6 decision touched off protests in the region and the Palestinians have said Washington can no longer serve as a peace broker. A US bid to revive negotiations, led by the president’s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has so far shown no progress.
“The authority to relinquish parts of the land is not in the hands of any Jew, nor of the Jewish people,” said Naftali Bennett, head of the far-right Jewish Home coalition party, which sponsored the legislation.
Palestinian officials were not immediately available for comment on the new amendment, which passed by a vote of 64 to 52.
Opposition head Isaac Herzog said Jewish Home was leading Israel “toward a terrible disaster.”
The status of Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive issues in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. It says the entire city is its “eternal and indivisible” capital.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state that would also include the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party unanimously urged legislators in a non-binding resolution to effectively annex Israeli settlements built in the West Bank.
Political commentators said the decision might bolster right-wing support for Netanyahu, who could seek a public mandate in an early election while he awaits possible criminal indictments against him on corruption suspicions. He denies wrongdoing.
Parliamentary elections are not due until November 2019 but the police investigations in two cases of alleged corruption against Netanyahu and tensions among coalition partners in his government could hasten a poll.
Some commentators, pointing to an existing law that already sets a similar high threshold for handing over territory in a land-for-peace deal, have said Jewish Home was essentially competing with Likud for support among the right-wing base.
Israel raises threshold to cede parts of Jerusalem in peace deal
Israel raises threshold to cede parts of Jerusalem in peace deal
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
