Israel ‘doesn’t have to wait’
- Netanyahu tells Putin Trump’s ME plan a ‘new opportunity’
- Palestinian president to visit UN in next two weeks
- Israel boosts army presence in West Bank, near Gaza
Questions surfaced yesterday over whether Israel would immediately seek to annex parts of the West Bank, after US President Donald Trump’s controversial peace plan called for extending Israeli sovereignty to the area.
The plan, seen as overwhelmingly supportive of Israeli goals, has been firmly rejected by the Palestinians.
It gives the Jewish state a US green light to annex key parts of the occupied West Bank, including in the strategic Jordan Valley.
But uncertainty was mounting over Israel’s next moves. After Trump unveiled his long-awaited plan in Washington on Tuesday, his ambassador to Israel David Friedman said the Jewish state “does not have to wait at all”.
Israeli officials then said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a staunch Trump ally, would seek cabinet approval on Sunday to annex settlements and territory that would be part of Israel under the US plan.
But Jared Kushner -- Trump’s adviser and son-in-law who spearheaded the Middle East initiative -- said that Washington does not want any moves made before Israel’s March 2 election.
The international community views Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank as illegal and an attempt to formally place them under Israeli sovereignty would likely trigger further global uproar.
At the start of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu said Trump’s initiative offered “a new and perhaps unique opportunity,” without mentioning annexation.
The Russian leader did not mention the peace plan at all in his public remarks.
Meanwhile, Israel’s army announced that it had deployed extra troops to the West Bank and around the Gaza Strip ahead of any further Palestinian demonstrations against the Trump plan.
The protests have been relatively muted since the Trump announcement, with only isolated clashes reported. But one rocket was fired from the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip on Wednesday evening. In response, Israeli aircraft struck a “number of Hamas terror targets” in the southern Gaza Strip, the army said.
An Israeli military official told AFP the decision to deploy extra troops to the West Bank and the Gaza border was made “to minimise the risk of a flareup”.
Meanwhile, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will visit the UN within two weeks to address the Security Council on his rejection of the new US Mideast plan, his ambassador to the body said Wednesday.
Trump’s plan prompted a lukewarm response from Europe and the UN, and a furious rebuke from key Muslim countries who denounced it as betrayal of the Palestinians.
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