JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top coalition partner Benny Gantz said on Monday that a July 1 target date to begin discussing proposed annexation of occupied West Bank land was “not sacred,” a source in Gantz’s party said.
The remarks, which the source said Gantz made during a meeting with US Ambassador David Friedman and White House adviser Avi Berkowitz, threw doubt on prospects for a unified Israeli approach to President Donald Trump’s peace plan.
Washington wants Gantz on board for the plan, which envisages Israel annexing Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley, and a Palestinian state established under strict conditions elsewhere in the West Bank.
With the Palestinians boycotting the plan, however, Netanyahu and Gantz had agreed in a deal under which they formed a coalition government last month that a cabinet debate on annexation could begin as of July 1.
“Gantz made clear in the meeting that July 1 is not a sacred date” and voiced preference for Israel dealing with the economic ravages of the coronavirus crisis, a source in his centrist Blue and White party said.
Briefing reporters last week, Gantz — who serves as Israel’s defense minister, as well as alternate prime minister — predicted that the coronavirus crisis could last 18 months.
Hailing the Trump plan as an “historic move,” Gantz told the US envoys that it should be advanced “with strategic partners in the region and with the Palestinians, and to reach an arrangement that benefits all side,” the source said.
The US embassy spokeswoman could not immediately be reached for comment.
Israel’s Gantz says date for West Bank annexation talks ‘not sacred’
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Israel’s Gantz says date for West Bank annexation talks ‘not sacred’
- Washington wants Gantz on board for the plan, which envisages Israel annexing Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley
- Netanyahu and Gantz had agreed in a deal under which they formed a coalition government last month that a cabinet debate on annexation could begin as of July 1
Red Cross transfers 8 Palestinians from Israeli detention to Gaza
- They were taken across the Karm Abu Salem border crossing to Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, where they were reunited with their families
LONDON: The International Committee of the Red Cross transferred eight Palestinians from Israeli detention to the Gaza Strip on Monday.
The organization took them across the Karm Abu Salem border crossing to Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah and helped reunite them with their families.
The Red Cross has been unable to visit Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention centers since October 2023, as a result of which the fate and location of many detainees from Gaza were unknown, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
The Red Cross said that according to the principles of international humanitarian law, detainees must be treated humanely, held in proper conditions and allowed to have contact with their families.
Israel is holding about 9,245 Palestinian prisoners in jails, including 358 held without charge or trial under administrative detention, according to Jerusalem-based rights group HaMoked.
