Washington’s special Middle East envoy, using a slim lifeline from the Palestinians, rushed to the region yesterday on an emergency mission to keep peace talks from collapsing just weeks after they began.
Israel’s decision to resume new West Bank settlement construction after a 10-month moratorium expired on midnight on Sunday has provoked Palestinian threats to walk out of the talks. It has also caused new friction between Israel and the US, which said it was “disappointed” with Israel’s refusal to relent.
On Monday night, Washington dispatched special envoy George Mitchell to the region to try to bridge gaps that Palestinian, Israel and US officials failed to close in a frenetic round of meetings in the US last week.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave US mediation more time to work when he announced on Monday he wouldn’t decide whether to abandon the talks before consulting senior Arab officials in Cairo next week. An Arab League official said Arab foreign ministers were expected to endorse whatever position Abbas took.
A senior Palestinian official said the Palestine Liberation Organization’s 18-member decision-making body would meet today or tomorrow to formulate a position before Abbas meets with the league envoys.
In Paris yesterday, Abbas urged Israel to halt new West Bank settlement construction as long as the peace talks continue, saying he feared the two sides might miss a “historic opportunity” if Israel refuses to renew a just-expired freeze on the building.
“If settlement stops, we will continue the negotiations. If not, we will stop,” Abbas said.
“We cannot destroy this hope [for peace] with things that are secondary, like settlements,” he said.
Palestinian leaders, he added, hope Israel will halt settlement building “as long as there are negotiations.”
In other developments, Israeli warships yesterday intercepted a Jewish activist boat trying to run the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip after it refused to heed calls to change course, organizers said.
“Ten Israeli warships forced the boat to head for [the Israeli port] of Ashdod by force, but without raiding the ship,” said Amjad al-Shawa, a Gaza-based organizer.
“They surrendered because they were surrounded. They had no choice,” he said.
Shawa said the warships had surrounded the tiny British-flagged vessel and warned they would stop it by force if it stayed on course for the Hamas-run enclave.
The navy had earlier warned that the passengers and crew would be held legally liable if they insisted on heading to Gaza, especially those with Israeli nationality. Five of those on board are Israelis.
Meanwhile, the US yesterday criticized a UN probe into Israel’s storming of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May, urging the UN Human Rights Council to prevent the report from being used to torpedo peace talks.
“We are concerned by the report’s unbalanced language, tone and conclusions,” US Ambassador Eileen Donahoe told the council. “We urge that this report not be used for actions that could disrupt the direct Israeli-Palestinian talks now underway or actions that could make it harder.”
A probe ordered by the council said last week there was clear evidence to back a prosecution against Israel for killing and torture when troops stormed the flotilla in May, leaving nine Turkish activists dead.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
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Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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