Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Thursday he has decided to stop implementing all agreements with Israel. The declaration came a day after the US blocked a UN attempt to rebuke Israel over Palestinian home demolitions.

“We announce the leadership’s decision to stop implementing the agreements signed with the Israeli side,” Abbas said in a speech in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Abbas had previously not spoken so clearly and definitively of a break in cooperation, although Palestinian officials have in the past made threats to stop implementing all accords with Israel.

He said the Palestinians would immediately form a committee to study how to carry out the decision.

The two governments work together on matters ranging from water to security, and withdrawing from agreements could impact security in the occupied West Bank.

Abbas, 84, has made similar threats before and not implemented them.

US blocks UN attempt to rebuke Palestinian home demolitions

The Palestinian leader’s announcement came a day after the US blocked a move by Kuwait, Indonesia and South Africa to get the UN Security Council to condemn Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes on the outskirts of Jerusalem

Earlier this week, Israel began demolishing a number of Palestinian homes south of Jerusalem.

The residential structures were located close to Israel’s separation barrier which cuts off the occupied West Bank. Israel says they were built too close to the wall, which the Jewish state considers vital for its security.

The initial draft Security Council statement described the construction of the wall by Israel as contrary to international law

UN officials, who had called on Israel to halt the demolition plans, said 17 Palestinians faced displacement.

Kuwait, Indonesia and South Africa circulated a five-paragraph draft statement, according to diplomats, to the 15-member Security Council on Tuesday that expressed grave concern and warned that the demolition “undermines the viability of the two-state solution and the prospect for just and lasting peace”.

Such statements have to be agreed by consensus and on Wednesday the US told its council counterparts it could not support the text, diplomats said.

A revised three paragraph draft statement was then circulated, but the US again said it did not agree with the text, diplomats said.

Washington has long accused the UN of anti-Israel bias and shields its ally from council action.

US envoy says international law, UN resolutions ‘unclear’

US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and Trump’s son-in-law-cum-adviser Jared Kushner have spent two years developing a peace plan they hope will provide a framework for renewed talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Greenblatt told the Security Council on Tuesday a peace plan cannot rely on global consensus, inconclusive international law and “unclear” UN resolutions, sparking pushback from several countries. He said a decision on the release of the political component of the US plan would be made “soon”.

But relations between Abbas’s government, based in the West Bank, and its Israeli counterpart have worsened in recent months.

Israel cuts tax revenues to Palestinians

In February, the Jewish state decided to deduct around $10 million a month from tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, corresponding to the amount it said the Palestinian Authority pays to families of prisoners or directly to inmates in Israeli jails.

Israel sees such payments as encouraging attacks while Palestinians see them as support for families who have often lost their main breadwinner.

The Palestinians have in response refused to take any of the roughly $180 million in monthly tax revenues until the full amount is transferred, leaving Abbas’s PA in financial crisis.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)

Sixteen US Marines were arrested on Thursday for their alleged involvement in illegal activities including human smuggling and drug-related offenses, the US military said.

In a press release, the Marine Corps said that the Marines were arrested at Camp Pendleton in California based on information gained from a previous human smuggling investigation.

The statement added that in addition to the Marines arrested, eight others were questioned for unrelated alleged drug offenses.

The Marine Corps said none of those arrested or detained were serving in support of the military’s mission along the border with Mexico.

The arrest comes a day after the military said a Navy SEAL team was sent back from Iraq because of discipline issues. An official said it was because, in part, they had been drinking alcohol, something that is prohibited.

(Source: Reuters)

Romanian diplomat Cornel Feruta will head the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) until member states agree on who will permanently succeed deceased Director General Yukiya Amano.

The IAEA announced on Monday that chief Yukiya Amano had died, leaving the agency with a leadership vacuum at a time of tensions between Iran and the West following Washington’s decision last year to quit a 2015 international deal that curbed Tehran’s nuclear program in return for an easing of economic sanctions.

“The Board of Governors has decided to designate Mr. Cornel Feruta as acting Director General, until a Director General assumes office,” the United Nations nuclear agency said on Thursday.

Last week, the agency said that Amano’s health problems had forced him to plan an early end to his term, which was originally set to expire in December 2021.

The Japanese diplomat held the position of IAEA director general since 2009 when he took over from Mohamed ElBaradei and began steering the international body through a period of intense diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear program.

Amano, on several occasions, reaffirmed Iran’s compliance with its nuclear-related commitments under the 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). US President Donald Trump, however, pulled his country out of the JCPOA in May 2018 and re-imposed harsh sanctions against the Islamic Republic in defiance of global criticisms.

Sources: (news agencies)

Tunisia’s 92-year-old president, Beji Caid Essebsi, who helped guide the North African country’s transition to democracy after a 2011 revolution, has died.

A leading figure in the country’s fortunes since 2011, Essebsi was hospitalized late last month and spent a week in hospital after suffering what authorities described as a severe health crisis.

“On Thursday morning, the President of the Republic died at the military hospital in Tunis … The burial ceremony will be announced later,” the presidency said in a statement.

According to the constitution, the speaker of parliament will temporarily serve as president.

Essebsi has been a prominent politician in Tunisia since the overthrow of former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, which was followed by uprisings against Arab monarchies across the Middle East, including in nearby Libya and Egypt.

Drafted in as prime minister in 2011 after Ben Ali was toppled, Essebsi was elected president three years later, becoming the country’s first directly elected head of state after its uprising.

Parliamentary elections are expected to be held on October 6 with a presidential vote following on November 17. They will be the third set of polls in which Tunisians have been able to vote freely following the 2011 revolution.

The presidency further called on Tunisians to unite and safeguard their country’s present and future.

“After the revolution, the president led the people to avoid confrontation and led the democratic transition and was keen to build and complete the constitutional institutions,” said the presidency.

The North African country has been hailed for its relatively smooth democratic transition with a new constitution, free elections and a coalition government, but it is still experiencing economic and political turbulence.

Source: (Reuters)