AMMAN: A group of US citizens from Al-Bireh in Palestine have protested against US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Psagot, an Israeli settlement.
Former Al-Bireh mayor Abdel Jawwad Saleh was part of the protests, and told Arab News that the settlement “was built on citizens rightfully owned private property.”
The American-Palestinian group said in an open letter to Pompeo obtained by Arab News that they are the “legal property owners and titleholders of the land where the Israeli settlement of Psagot is built.”
The land was initially confiscated by the Israeli army for security purposes and later handed over to Israeli settlers.
Saleh, the 89-year old former mayor, lost seven dunums as part of Israeli settlement efforts. He directed harsh criticism at Pompeo, saying: “This is the land of our forefathers that your friends stole. You may drink the wine of this settlement but its grapes are the blood of Palestinians.”
The outgoing Trump-era official made an unprecedented and controversial visit to a Psagot winery that last year renamed one of their brands after Pompeo in a “show of gratitude.”
The American-Palestinian group said they “will not stop efforts to return our private property.” They also labeled Pompeo “a secretary of state not fit for office,” adding that they will pursue legal action and “hold him accountable for his actions that are facilitating the theft of private property of US citizens abroad.”
Anis F. Kassim, publisher of the Palestine Yearbook, told Arab News that Pompeo’s visit to Psagot is “an act of aggression against Palestinian rights.”
He said: “By endorsing the settlement structure and apartheid system that Israel is building in historical Palestine, the US is endorsing robbery of Palestinian land.”
Kassim called the US action “repugnant” to customary and conventional international law. “The Hague regulations and Geneva Conventions prohibit pillage by an occupying power,” he said.
In addition to the West Bank settlement visit, Pompeo plans to travel to the occupied Golan Heights that Israel annexed in 1981. In a deeply controversial move last year, the Trump administration formally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied region.
Oraib Rantawi, director of the Amman-based Al-Quds Center for Political Studies, told Arab News that Pompeo’s visit is a “continuation of an attempt to normalize and legitimize settlements,” and could lead to the US “recognizing the annexation of larger settlements.”
Rantawi labeled the Trump administration’s visit as “part of gifts to the Israelis and their Zionist supporters in the US.”
Jordanian political activist Zaid Nabulsi said that the Golan Heights are “Syrian occupied and Syrian territory, regardless of what US officials say or do.”
Suhail Khalileh a settlement expert, said that the actions of any country that contravene international law and UNSC resolutions would normally be ignored.
“Khalifeh said that during the Biden era much of these actions will be referred.
“We feel that there is a huge campaign going on between the US and Palestine on the political progressive level as well as on the level of universities and municipalities.”
Ali Abunimah, one of the founders of the BDS movement, also commented on attempts by Pompeo to link the movement to antisemitism.
“This desperate tactic is a last gasp effort from a defeated administration to give Israel’s apartheid regime a parting gift. It will in no way affect the determination of Palestinians to campaign and struggle for their rights,” he told Arab News.
US-Palestine nationals denounce Pompeo visit
https://arab.news/yubuq
US-Palestine nationals denounce Pompeo visit
- Pompeo made a controversial visit to a Psagot winery that last year renamed one of their brands after him
- The American-Palestinian group said they “will not stop efforts to return our private property”
Aid workers find little life in El-Fasher after RSF takeover
- First UN visit to the devastated Sudanese city finds traumatized civilians in ‘unsafe conditions’
PORT SUDAN: Traumatized civilians left in Sudan’s El-Fasher after its capture by paramilitary forces are living without water or sanitation in a city haunted by famine, UN aid coordinator Denise Brown said on Monday.
El-Fasher fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in October after more than 500 days of siege, and last Friday, a small UN humanitarian team was able to make its first short visit in almost two years.
Mass atrocities, including massacres, torture, and sexual violence, reportedly accompanied the capture of the city. Satellite pictures reviewed by AFP show what appear to be mass graves.
FASTFACT
From a humanitarian point of view, UN aid coordinator Denise Brown said, El-Fasher remains Sudan’s ‘epicenter of human suffering’ and the city — which once held more than a million people — is still facing a famine.
Brown described the city as a “crime scene,” but said human rights experts would carry out investigations while her office focuses on restoring aid to the survivors.
“We weren’t able to see any of the detainees, and we believe there are detainees,” she said.
From a humanitarian point of view, she said, El-Fasher remains Sudan’s “epicenter of human suffering” and the city — which once held more than a million people — is still facing a famine.
“El-Fasher is a ghost of its former self,” Brown said in an interview.
“We don’t have enough information yet to conclude how many people remain there, but we know large parts of the city are destroyed. The people who remain, their homes have been destroyed.”
“These people are living in very precarious situations,” warned Brown, a Canadian diplomat and the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Sudan.
“Some of them are in abandoned buildings. Some of them ... in very rudimentary conditions, plastic sheeting, no sanitation, no water. So these are very undignified, unsafe conditions for people.”
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the regular army and its former allies, the RSF, which has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe.
Brown said the team “negotiated hard with the RSF” to obtain access and managed to look around, visit a hard-pressed hospital, and some abandoned UN premises — but only for a few hours.
Their movements were also limited by fears of unexploded ordnance and mines left behind from nearly two years of fighting.
“There was one small market operating, mostly with produce that comes from surrounding areas, so tomatoes, onions, potatoes,” she said.
“Very small quantities, very small bags, which tells you that people can’t afford to buy more.”
“There is a declared famine in El-Fasher. We’ve been blocked from going in. There’s nothing positive about what’s happened in El-Fasher.
“It was a mission to test whether we could get our people safely in and out, to have a look at what remains of the town, who remains there, what their situation is,” she said.
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people, driven 11 million from their homes, and caused what the UN has declared “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.”
