Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye called on the international community to boycott Israel and impose sanctions on it…reports Asian Lite News
Ishtaye made the remarks during the weekly meeting of the Palestinian cabinet held in the West Bank city of Ramallah, an official statement said.
“The world’s countries are urged to activate the decisions of their governments to boycott Israel, impose sanctions on it,” Ishtaye told the cabinet.
He noted that “Israel’s escape from punishment is the main motive for its settlement and displacement,” adding that “the time has come for this dual policy to stop and provide protection for the Palestinians.”
Meanwhile, Ishtaye called on the United States and the European countries “to intervene urgently to stop the new settlement plans that Israel intends to implement in the West Bank.”
“These plans are undermining the two-state solution, and are threat to peace and stability in the region,” he said, referring to the Israeli approval of constructing 4,320 new settlement units in the West Bank.
The Israeli settlements are located in the West Bank, which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war and has controlled ever since. More than 600,000 Israeli settlers live in dozens of settlements that have been constructed in the territory since then. The expansion of the Israeli settlements was considered widely in the international community as a violation of international law.
Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are claimed by the Palestinians, in the 1967 Middle East war.
Hamas leader
The leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip Yahya Sinwar told the press that he did not “take recent Israeli assassination threats into account.”
While offering condolences for Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh killed by Israeli soldiers on Wednesday, Sinwar called on the international community “to hold Israel accountable for its crimes” and said he was ready to show up directly on television.
It was the first appearance of Sinwar, 59, after Israel threatened to assassinate him following an attack carried out in Elad, east of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, which killed three Israelis and wounded four others on May 5.
Israeli media quoted Israeli political and security sources as saying that Israel considers Sinwar “a mastermind of terrorist acts, and considers itself free to work in the Gaza Strip to curb terrorism,” but the army opposed the decision to assassinate Sinwar as Israeli army leaders believed the time was not ripe to implement such a decision.
Sinwar, a former detainee who spent more than 20 years in Israeli prisons and was released under a prisoner exchange deal in 2011, has been the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip since 2017.
Clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli police in East Jerusalem on Monday night as thousands gathered for the funeral of a young Palestinian who died after being injured in clashes with police in April.
Israel’s state-owned Kan TV news reported that Israeli police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse Palestinian demonstrators who hurled stones at them, and dozens of people have been injured.
The police said in a statement that five Palestinians were arrested amid “riots during a funeral of a suspect who was shot by the police last month after he hurled rocks and rioted.”
No injuries have been reported among the Israeli forces.
Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral of Waleed Shareef, who died on Saturday of wounds. He was injured on April 22 when Israeli police fired rubber bullets at Palestinian demonstrators at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
The incident came amid heightened tensions over a string of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in recent weeks.
In another development, Palestine warned of the consequences of allowing Israeli settlers to visit the compound of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the old city of Jerusalem.
“These plans are an Israeli persistence to perpetuate visiting the Al-Aqsa as something imposed by force, to consolidate its temporal division to divide it spatially,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that the Israeli government is responsible for the consequences should a conflict occur.
Earlier on Saturday, the Jewish “Temple Mount” groups called through social media platforms on their Jewish fans to enter Al-Aqsa Mosque collectively on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the “Second Jewish Passover.”
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The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the international community and the United States to intervene urgently and put pressure on the Israeli government to stop the settler groups’ visits to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
In April, during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover, the Al-Aqsa compound witnessed fierce confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinian worshipers who protested against Jewish visits to their holy site.
Tension at the Al-Aqsa Mosque could spark a military confrontation between armed Palestinian factions and Israel, similar to the last offensive waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip in May 2021.
For Muslims worldwide, the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the old city of Jerusalem is their first shrine and third mosque. They call the holy place al-Haram al-Sharif, while Jews call it “The Temple Mount.”
The Palestinians want the eastern part of Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel together with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, as the capital of their future state.
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