Israel reopens Gaza crossings as calm restored: Site found for Golan ‘Trump’ settlement

OCCUPIED-AL-QUDS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that a site for a promised new settlement to be named after US President Donald Trump had been chosen and formal approval was under way.

"I promised that we would establish a community named after President Trump," Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. "I would like to inform you that we have already selected a site in the Golan Heights where this new community will be established, and we have started the process," he said in Hebrew.

Netanyahu pledged such a move last month, in appreciation of Trump’s recognition of Israel’s claim of sovereignty over part of the strategic plateau. Trump broke with longstanding international consensus on March 25 when he recognised Israel’s claim of sovereignty over the part of the Golan it seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.

In December 2017, he said Washington would recognise the disputed city of al-Quds as Israel’s capital, sparking outrage among the Palestinians who claim Israeli-annexed east Occupied al-Quds as the capital of their own future state.

The US embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Occupied al-Quds and inaugurated on March 14, 2018. Netanyahu said he would submit the new settlement plan for cabinet approval when a new government takes office in the wake of last month’s snap general election.

Netanyahu has been conducting low-key meetings with heads of the parties expected to join his coalition. He has until the end of May to put together an alliance.Meanwhile, Israel reopened on Sunday its crossings with the blockaded Gaza Strip after closing them during a deadly escalation earlier this month, an official said, as a fragile truce held.

Both the Erez crossing for people and Kerem Shalom crossing for goods were open and operating, a spokeswoman for COGAT, the defence ministry unit that oversees the crossings, said in a statement.

Both had been closed on May 4, when Gaza rulers Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets at Israel, with the army striking dozens of targets in Gaza in response. Four Israeli civilians and 25 Palestinians, including at least nine militants, were killed in the two-day flare-up, which ended on Monday in a tentative truce.

Palestinian officials said Israel had agreed to ease its crippling decade-long blockade of the impoverished enclave in exchange for calm. Israel did not publicly confirm the deal, but on Friday lifted the ban it had imposed on Palestinian fishing boats operating off Gaza.

Israel says its blockade is necessary to isolate Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas, with whom it has fought three wars since 2008. But critics say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s two million residents.