Israel/Palästina

The White House on Saturday outlined a $50 billion Middle East economic plan that would create a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab state economies, and fund a $5 billion transportation corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza. … Palestinian officials reject the overall U.S.-led peace effort as heavily tilted in favor of Israel and likely to deny them a fully sovereign state of their own.

Israeli lawmakers have voted to dissolve parliament after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a coalition government. The vote triggered a fresh election, which will be held on 17 September.

The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, is following with “deep concern” the latest developments across the Gaza-Israeli border and urges all parties to exercise maximum restraint. Over the weekend, hundreds of rockets were launched from the Occupied Palestinian Territory into southern Israel, and Israel retaliated with hundreds of airstrikes and tank fire.

There has been a lull in hostilities in the Gaza Strip after Palestinian militants said that a ceasefire with Israel had been agreed. It comes after a weekend during which Palestinian militants launched hundreds of rockets into Israel prompting retaliatory air and artillery strikes. At least four Israelis and 25 Palestinians were killed. Israel has not confirmed the truce, but its military has lifted emergency measures in place in southern Israel.

The UN is “continuing to address the humanitarian, economic and political crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” but efforts are continually undermined by the lack of any political progress towards a two-State solution, said the head of UN Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) on Monday.

Israeli soldiers may have committed war crimes while responding to Palestinian protests on the Gaza border last year, UN human rights experts have said.

The spectres of violence and radicalism in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are growing, and the prospect of sustainable peace is fading by the day, a senior UN envoy in the region told the Security Council on Wednesday.

A “peaceful and just solution” to the Israel-Palestine conflict can “only be achieved” through two States “living side-by-side in peace and security”, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterresreiterated on Friday.

The Palestinian foreign minister is asking Arab countries to boycott or downgrade their representation at the upcoming U.S.-sponsored Mideast summit in Poland. … Riad Malki says the Palestinians “view the Warsaw conference as a plot against the Palestinian cause.”

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his gratitude to the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), West Bank, after Israel decided not to renew its mandate.