Palestine

RAMALLAH, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Palestine on Sunday reiterated its rejection of the U.S. Mideast peace deal, describing it as a "declaration of hostility" against the Palestinian people.

"The plan poses a serious threat to the rules-based international order and the foundations of international law," according to a position paper issued by the Palestine Liberation Organization's Public Diplomacy and Policy Department.

It said that the proposed plan grants Israel "immediate rewards of annexation," leaving Palestinians with no sovereignty at all.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said “a thousand no’s” to the Mideast peace plan announced Tuesday by President Donald Trump, which strongly favors Israel.

The Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state with its capital in east Jerusalem, Abbas said at a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is headquartered.

“After the nonsense that we heard today we say a thousand no’s to the Deal of The Century,” he said.

GAZA, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- Israeli warplanes on Saturday night carried out several airstrikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in response to the launch of balloons carrying explosives into southern Israel, security sources in Gaza said.

The sources told Xinhua that the warplanes struck posts belonging to Hamas movement's armed wing in southern and central Gaza Strip.

No injuries or damages were reported.

RAMALLAH, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Palestine on Sunday accused the United States of trying to turn the future Palestinian state into cantons under the Israeli control.

"The U.S. administration wants to transform the Palestinians into small cantons in an entity that is under Israeli control," said Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Executive Committee of Palestine Liberation Organization.

BETHLEHEM, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye declared on Saturday that Palestine will invest 100 million U.S. dollars to establish an alternative energy sources company.

"At the World Economic Forum at Davos, we will announce the creation of a company with 100 million dollars investment to support projects for alternative energy sources in Palestine," Ishtaye said.

His remarks came in a speech during a groundbreaking ceremony for four new hotels in Bethlehem city in the south of the West Bank.

GAZA (Reuters) - The interim head of the U.N. agency that aids Palestinian refugees accused the United States on Thursday of lobbying foreign parliaments to stop donations to the organization, to which Washington cut off funding in 2018.

Christian Saunders, in an interview with Reuters in his Gaza office, also said Israel was seeking to replace United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) services for Palestinians, mandated by the U.N. General Assembly, in occupied East Jerusalem with those of its own.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Abdullah Abu Rahma has been arrested by Israeli soldiers eight times in the last 15 years, spending weeks or months in prison and paying tens of thousands of dollars in fines for organizing protests.

He’s among a growing number of Palestinians who have embraced non-violent means of protesting Israel’s military rule and expanding settlements, and who are increasingly finding those avenues of dissent blocked.

RAMALLAH, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas insisted on Sunday that there will be no general Palestinian election unless Israel allows Palestinians to vote in the heart of East Jerusalem.

Abbas made the remarks during his Fatah Movement's Advisory Council meeting, held at the Palestinian Presidency Headquarters in Ramallah, according to the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA).

"We won't hold any elections without having Jerusalem as part of it," said Abbas, adding, "Any resident of Jerusalem must go to vote in the heart of East Jerusalem."

RAMALLAH, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Revolutionary Council of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Movement called on Saturday on the Palestinian factions to agree on "not to hold the elections without holding it in East Jerusalem."

"Holding the elections in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem constitutes a necessity to renew legitimacy, a national and constitutional entitlement, and a last way to solve the problem of the Palestinian internal division," the council said in an official statement at the conclusion of a three-day meeting held in Ramallah.

RAMALLAH, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday hailed the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open the way for the Palestinians to sue Israel.

He made the remarks at an ongoing session attended by members of the revolutionary council of his Fatah party in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"This is a historic day, and now any Palestinian who gets injured by the occupier (Israel) can file a case to the criminal court," said Abbas, according to the Palestinian WAFA news agency.