RAMALLAH: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas withdrew his top representative to the United States Tuesday, the foreign ministry announced, a day after the US moved its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington, would return to the Palestinian territories Wednesday, the statement said.
It did not say how long Zomlot, the most senior Palestinian official in Washington, would be withdrawn for. The Palestinians reacted furiously to President Donald Trump’s December announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving his country’s embassy there from Tel Aviv.
They consider the eastern part of Jerusalem their capital and countries have long kept their embassies in Tel Aviv, saying the future of the holy city was an issue to be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The date of Monday’s embassy opening also angered Palestinians, coming the day before they commemorate their mass displacement in the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel.
The Israeli government welcomed the embassy move, which coincided with the anniversary of the country’s independence. The event was overshadowed by mass protests along the Gaza border in which Israeli fire killed 60 Palestinians.
Meanwhile, The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session on Friday to discuss “the deteriorating human rights situation” in the Palestinian Territories, after Israeli forces killed 60 Palestinians during protests along the Gaza border. “The special session is being convened per an official request submitted this evening by Palestine and the United Arab Emirates,” on behalf of the rights council’s Arab Group and has so far received support from 26 states, the Geneva-based body said in a statement Tuesday.
Kuwait said Tuesday it would propose a draft U.N. Security Council resolution on “protection of Palestinian civilians” following deadly violence along the Gaza border where Israeli troops killed 60 Palestinians, as western countries broke ranks with the US and denounced the use of excessive force against the protestors. The United States was the only 15-nation council member to say that Israel had acted against the Palestinians with restraint. “The Hamas terrorist organization has been inciting violence for years, long before the United States decided to move our embassy (to Jerusalem),” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the council.
“No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has.” Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour told the Security Council that the Israeli “occupation is the main source of violence in our region.” He pleaded with the council to “act immediately to stop the massacre committed against our people.” After the council meeting, all Arab ambassadors and the representative of OIC staged a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people in front of a battery of journalists.
They were followed by other members of the council, including Europeans, who called for an investigation into the tragic loss of Palestinian life. Kuwait’s U.N. Ambassador Mansour al-Otaibi told reporters the meeting that he would likely circulate the draft resolution to the 15-member council on Wednesday. It was unclear when it could be put to a vote.
