RAMALLAH: Jordan’s King Abdullah II landed in Ramallah on Monday to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, in his first trip to the Israeli-occupied West Bank since 2017, Abbas’s office said.
Abdullah’s visit comes as foreign ministers from four Arab states joined an unprecedented meeting hosted in Israel, a gathering Israel hailed as “historic,” following a series of normalization agreements last year, which angered the Palestinians.
The visit also comes less than a week before Ramadan, the Muslim holy month which last year saw waves of violence across the West Bank and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
The Jordanian king met Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid earlier this month to discuss strategies for containing unrest during Ramadan.
Palestinian officials have repeatedly warned that the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967, was on the verge of “exploding.”
Tensions in the occupied territory remain high between Palestinian residents and Jewish settlers, who live in communities widely regarded as illegal under international law.
Palestinians also regularly clash with Israeli security forces in the West Bank, often resulting in Palestinian deaths.
Jordan’s king lands in Ramallah on rare trip to meet Abbas
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Jordan’s king lands in Ramallah on rare trip to meet Abbas
UN warns of environmental hazards from Middle East war
- Several oil facilities in Iran were targeted by Israeli strikes Sunday, and Iran has also launched strikes on oil facilities in the region
UN chief Antonio Guterres’s office warned Monday of “serious environmental consequences” from recent strikes on oil facilities and desalination plants in the Middle East, saying they pose significant threats to air quality and drinking water.
“We continue to raise the alarm over the humanitarian impact of escalating violence across parts of the Middle East, which is driving rising civilian casualties, damage to civilian infrastructure and growing displacement of people,” the secretary-general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a press conference.
He added that the United Nations was “particularly concerned by the number of reports of recent strikes on oil facilities, which could have serious environmental consequences across the region, with immediate possible impacts on safe water, on air that people need to breathe, and on food.”
Bahrain’s interior ministry had said Sunday that an Iranian drone attack also damaged a water desalination plant, which is essential infrastructure for the country’s economy and drinking water supplies.
“We reiterate again that all possible precautions must be taken to protect civilians from the impact of hostilities and to avoid damage to health facilities, schools, water systems and other essential infrastructure,” Dujarric said.
Several oil facilities in Iran were targeted by Israeli strikes Sunday, and Iran has also launched strikes on oil facilities in the region.
