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EU to host emergency Gaza meeting
Norway and the European Union will convene an emergency meeting on 31 January to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Diplomats told Israel’s Channel 10 News reporter Barak Ravid that Norway’s Foreign Minister, Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide, raised the issue with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas during her visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah earlier this week and got their agreement.
The “extraordinary session” of donor countries to the Palestinians will take place in Brussels. Israel will be represented by Minister for Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi and the Palestinians will be represented by PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdalla.
The EU said: “There is an urgent need to bring all parties together to discuss measures to speed up efforts that can underpin a negotiated two-state solution.”
The meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, the main coordination mechanism for EU assistance to the PA, is also due to discuss the situation in Gaza and to “enable the Palestinian Authority [PA] to execute full control” there. The reconciliation agreement signed between the PA and Hamas, which was due to see the PA take control over Gaza has faltered, with Hamas refusing to disband its military wing.
According to Channel 10 News, the meeting will be attended by all countries which donate money to the Palestinians, including several Arab countries. The US will likely be represented by US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and the meeting will be the first occasion that US and Palestinian officials will be together since Trump’s Jerusalem announcement.
Western diplomats also said that the US threat to cut funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) will also be discussed during the Brussels meeting – mainly due to the possible negative ramifications on Gaza.
On 2 January, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley warned that the US may stop funding UNRWA if the Palestinians continue to refuse to negotiate with Israel.