The UK, France and other countries are now set to recognise a Palestinian state, as Israeli control spreads across the West Bank and the Gaza War grinds on.<\/p>\n
Jenin’s mayor, Mohammed Jarrar, took me to the camp entrance near where Islam was shot. The army vehicles stationed here on my previous visits are nowhere to be seen, but a large earth berm now blocks the road in, and locals say Israeli snipers still scan the area from the buildings overhead.<\/p>\n
Mr Jarrar told me around 40% of Jenin was now a military area for Israeli forces, with around a quarter of residents \u2013 including the entire camp \u2013 displaced from their homes.<\/p>\n
“It was clear from the beginning this was a major political plan, not a security operation,” he told me. “This Israeli government wants to annex the West Bank and in preparation for that, it wants to prevent any [armed] opposition to its plan.”<\/p>\n
Israel has also placed the Palestinian Authority under a long-term economic siege, withholding tax revenues the PA needs to pay teachers and police.<\/p>\n
Israel accuses it of funding terrorism by compensating the families of Palestinian militants who are killed. The PA says it has now scrapped that payment scheme.<\/p>\n
Mr Jarrar said it was now very challenging to provide even basic services to the local population, and to persuade young people not to leave.<\/p>\n
Against this backdrop, he said, the recognition of a Palestinian state by Britain, France and others is important, even after more than 140 other nations have already done so.<\/p>\n
“It confirms the fact that the Palestinian people possess a state, even if it is under occupation,” he told me. “I know that this recognition will lead to [greater] occupation of the West Bank. But even so I believe recognition is more important, because it will shape the future of the Palestinian people, and the international community will be called on to defend their rights.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK, France and other countries are now set to recognise a Palestinian state, as Israeli control spreads…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-440370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115241044317368824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}