UNITED NATIONS: Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to intensify their peace talks with greater participation by the United States, US Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday.
“We have agreed now, in the last week, when I have met with both (Palestinian) President (Mahmoud) Abbas and (Israeli) Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu, we have agreed now to intensify these talks,” Kerry said at the United Nations. “And we have agreed that the American participation should be increased somewhat in order to try to help facilitate (that).”
Meanwhile, Israel has had to push back the Jewish resettlement of a Palestinian home in the West Bank city of Hebron for legal reasons, Housing Minister Uri Ariel said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday called for Israelis to take over the disputed house in response to the killing of an Israeli soldier in Hebron by a suspected Palestinian gunman.
But Ariel admitted to Israeli public radio that Netanyahu’s calls held no “official” authority, and that Jews could not resettle the house until its legal status was resolved.
Fourteen Palestinians in Hebron had appealed, after Netanyahu’s comments, to the Supreme Court saying the house belonged to them. Ariel, who lives in a West Bank settlement himself, accused the justice ministry of “systematic sabotage” to prevent the resettlement.
“But sooner or later, the house will be settled and I hope the prime minister and Defence Minster (Moshe Yaalon) will be more firm in future,” he said. The government last year removed 15 Jewish settlers from the disputed Machpela house, a Hebron structure near the volatile Cave of the Patriarchs. Agencies
