The Palestinian Health Ministry accused Israeli forces of launching an attack near an aid distribution point in war-wracked northern Gaza, killing 20 people and wounding 155 others. The Israeli military said those reports “are false,” adding it was assessing the violence that occurred late Thursday “with the thoroughness that it deserves.” The international community has … Read more
The Palestinian Authority security forces, which report to President Mahmoud Abbas, are at a pivotal moment. The group, estimated to be 35,500 members strong, is regarded by the Biden administration as central to its goal to stabilize a post-war Gaza. However, despite two decades of reforms, the Palestinian Authority remains chronically underfunded and widely unpopular; … Read more
NABLUS, West Bank — The signs of economic distress are everywhere in Nablus, a once-bustling hub of Palestinian commerce now paralyzed by Israel’s tightening grip on life and work in the West Bank. School-age children sell candy for change and the upscale hotels and restaurants are closed. Jobless men smoke cigarettes on street corners, while … Read more
BILBAO, Spain (AP) — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Saturday that he will propose that Spain’s parliament recognizes a Palestinian state. “I will propose granting Spain’s recognition to the Palestinian state,” Sánchez said. “I do this out of moral conviction, for a just cause and because it is the only way that the two … Read more
Days before Vivian Silver was killed by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attacks, the 74-year-old Israeli-Canadian peace activist was planning to drive six critically ill Palestinian patients to a hospital in Jerusalem. A longtime member of Kibbutz Be’eri, Silver often volunteered with Road to Recovery, an Israeli NGO that enlists volunteers to drive buses of … Read more
JERICHO, West Bank — At a U.S.-funded training center tucked between Jericho’s desert slopes, the next generation of Palestinian Authority security forces gripped their guns and readied for a mission. The objective: arrest two “violators of the law” who had taken refuge in a restaurant. The location: a collection of metal trailers meant to mimic … Read more
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — It took 10 years and three rounds of in vitro fertilization for Rania Abu Anza to become pregnant, and only seconds for her to lose her five-month-old twins, a boy and a girl. An Israeli strike hit the home of her extended family in the southern Gaza city of Rafah late … Read more
The Palestinian Authority’s prime minister announced his government’s resignation on Monday, seen as the first step in a reform process urged by the United States as part of its latest ambitious plans to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it will do little to address the authority’s longstanding lack of legitimacy among its own people or … Read more
JERUSALEM — The Palestinian Authority’s prime minister presented the resignation of the entire government on Monday, opening the way for a revitalized administration that the United States and its allies envision taking on an expanded role in postwar Gaza. The United States and several Arab countries have been pushing a plan — openly opposed by … Read more
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and his government tendered their resignations to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, in what many observers regard as the first step towards forming a new technocratic Palestinian administration to govern the Palestinian territories and to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza after Israel’s war to root out Hamas from … Read more