Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction yesterday called for a massive demonstration next week to protest against a visit to Jerusalem by US Vice President Mike Pence after Washington said it would recognise the holy city as Israel’s capital.
Breaking with decades of US policy, President Donald Trump also said on December 6 that he would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The move has stirred global condemnation and sparked angry protests across Arab and Muslim countries, as well as deadly clashes in the occupied territories between Palestinians and Israeli forces.
It also prompted Abbas to cancel a meeting with Pence, who arrives Wednesday in Jerusalem, and warn that Washington no longer had a role to play in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
“We call for angry protests at the entrances to Jerusalem and in its Old City to coincide with the visit on Wednesday of US Vice President Mike Pence and to protest against Trump’s decision,” Fatah said in a statement.
The status of Jerusalem is one of the most controversial issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The call to protest came as thousands of Palestinians took part in funerals for four men killed on Friday in clashes with Israeli forces during protests in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.
Mourners chanted anti-Trump slogans and masked men fired into the air during one of the ceremonies in the village of Beit Ula in the occupied West Bank.
Funerals were also held for the two other Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, where the enclave’s Hamas rulers had on Friday called for a “day of rage”. 
One of those killed was Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh, a Palestinian who lost his legs in an Israeli attack a decade ago, who, with his wheelchair, was a regular feature at protests along Gaza’s border with Israel.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniya attended Abu Thurayeh’s funeral in a refugee camp west of Gaza City.
“With his death there is no valid excuse not to fight,” Haniya said.
“No one in the world can change the truth that Palestine and Jerusalem belong only to the Palestinians,” he said.
Friday’s deaths brought to eight the number of Palestinians killed in violence or air strikes since Trump’s Jerusalem move, and hundreds have been also wounded.
Pence will no longer see Palestinian officials during his visit to the region after they — as well as Egyptian Muslim and other religious leaders — cancelled meetings in protest at the embassy move. “We understand that the Palestinians may need a bit of a cooling off period, that’s fine,” a senior White House official said on Friday. 
“We will be ready when the Palestinians are ready to re-engage.”
Pence is expected to try to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward after he lands in Jerusalem on Wednesday, US administration officials have said.
They also suggested that that the Western Wall — in largely Palestinian east Jerusalem — would almost certainly be part of Israel under any deal, sparking Palestinian condemnation.
“We will not accept any changes to the 1967 border of east Jerusalem,” Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for the Palestinian president, said yesterday.
“This American position proves once again that the current US administration is completely out of the peace process,” he said, adding that Trump’s decision on Jerusalem was “totally unacceptable”.

UN council mulls pitch for US decision withdrawal

The United Nations Security Council is considering a draft resolution that would insist any decisions on the status of Jerusalem have no legal effect and must be rescinded after US President Donald Trump recognised the city as Israel’s capital. 
The one-page Egyptian-drafted text, which was circulated to the 15-member council yesterday and seen by Reuters, does not specifically mention the United States or Trump. Diplomats say it has broad support but will likely be vetoed by Washington. Diplomats said the council could vote as early as tomorrow or Tuesday. A resolution needs nine votes in favour and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to be adopted. The draft UN resolution “affirms that any decisions and actions which purport to have altered, the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council.” It “calls upon all States to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Holy City of Jerusalem, pursuant to resolution 478 (1980) of the Security Council.”
The draft council resolution “demands that all states comply with Security Council resolutions regarding the Holy City of Jerusalem, and not to recognise any actions or measures contrary to those resolutions.”