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27-02-2023
AMMAN: Jordan will host a meeting on Sunday between top Israeli and Palestinian security and political officials in hopes of halting a recent surge in violence that has stoked fears of wider escalation ahead of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, officials said.
They said the one-day meeting in the Red Sea port of Aqaba will bring top Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs together for the first time in many years, along with representatives of key regional parties. US President Joe Biden’s adviser on the Middle East, Brett McGurk, will also attend.
The discussions are part of Jordan’s stepped-up diplomatic engagement with Washington and regional partner Egypt to restore calm in Israel and the Palestinian territories in Gaza and the West Bank and rebuild trust between the two sides, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The meeting is aimed at giving Palestinians hope for a political future, a senior Jordanian official told Reuters. If its objectives are achieved, “it will be reflected on the ground with decreased tensions,” he said.
The meeting offers a chance to halt a surge in Israeli-Palestinian clashes in recent months that has sparked Arab anger and international concern about a slide back to a wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Such a meeting has not happened in years… It’s a major achievement to get them together,” said the Jordanian official, who also requested anonymity.
In previous years, clashes have erupted between Israeli police and Palestinians around Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque at the height of Ramadan that coincided with Judaism’s Passover and Christian Easter.
Jerusalem is holy to all three faiths. Jordan is the custodian of al Aqsa, a major mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City.
At least 62 Palestinians, including gunmen and civilians, have been martyred this year, the Palestinian health ministry said. Ten Israelis and a Ukrainian tourist died in alleged Palestinian attacks in the same period, according to Israel’s foreign ministry.
Several Palestinian factions within mainstream Fatah to Hamas and Islamic Jehad called on the Palestinian Authority to pull out of the meeting, saying it was a US-led plot against Palestinian aspirations. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
