Palestine Round-Up: Saudis Shed Crocodile Tears and Israel Continues Bombing Gaza

Ahead of the Organisation of Islamic States (OIC) meeting in Istanbul, Turkey criticised the Arab states for a ‘feeble reaction’ to the Trump administration’s Jerusalem move. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that some Arab countries were scared of angering Washington.

It is interesting to know that despite the hue and cry by Arab states over the US’s Jerusalem move, some of these countries seem to be part of the same plan. Earlier in November, Saudi Arabia as a ‘peace initiative’ had offered the village of Abu Dis as the future capital of Palestine instead of East Jerusalem. The proposal was presented to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit to Riyadh last month. Saudi Arabia gave Abbas two months to accept to the offer or resign.

It appears that Saudis, along with UAE, had been working behind the scene and helping US President Trump in his decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

In the occupied territories of Palestine, around six Palestinians were killed and more than 1,500 injured, in the wave of protests that dominated the Palestinian territories after Trump's decision. Israeli jets continued to bomb besieged strip of Gaza and according to reports two people were killed on Tuesday.

Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of the health ministry in Gaza, confirmed the death of the two Palestinians riding on the motorbike and said that their bodies had been brought to the hospital in northern Gaza.

On Wednesday, Hamas said that the Israeli forces have arrested 35 Hamas leaders all over the West Bank, including Hassan Yousef. Yousef and others were released in the last Egyptian-brokered swap deal reached between Israel and the movement in 2011.

The videos of Israeli forces arresting children and brutally beating them up, have gone viral, sparking widespread global outrage. An image of 16 year old Palestinian boy, Fawzi al-Junaidi blindfolded and being taken away by more than 20 heavily armed Israeli soldiers, has been condemned as symbolising the Israeli army's use of excessive force.

According to reports, about 320 children are currently held in Israeli prisons and detention centres. Many of them end up being tried in military court.

Israeli soldiers in Hebron bravely defend themselves from a number of existential threats disguised as defenceless Palestinian children https://t.co/8y8siZqHpf pic.twitter.com/Oc2ghZPUnt

— Ben White (@benabyad) December 11, 2017

The brutality of Israeli forces, some argue, is the continuation of the infamous ‘breaking the bones policy’. During the first intifada, the then defence minister Yitzhak Rabin had ordered Israeli army commanders to break the bones of Palestinian protesters.

Meanwhile, Palestinians have reacted with fury at Arab League’s resolution on the Jerusalem move by US. The resolution, which condemned the move, stopped short of calling for consequences for the US.

"[Arab states] are responding with the same routine, lacklustre language of the past," Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian author who specialises in the Israel-Palestine conflict said, "knowing full well that such approach will not make an iota of difference or reverse the US decision or Israeli transgressions.”

Regarding the shifting of embassy, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said that the US embassy in Israel was unlikely to move to Jerusalem before 2020. "It's not going to be anything that happens right away," Tillerson said in a speech at the State Department on Tuesday. "Probably no earlier than three years out, and that's pretty ambitious.”

Administration officials said there were functional and logistical reasons the US cannot open a new embassy any time in the near future, the New York Times reported.

(with inputs from IANS)