Today, Tuesday, the Israeli government decided to postpone the approval of new settlement plans in occupied Jerusalem, and to provide "new facilities to the Palestinians", on the eve of US President Joe Biden's visit.
While the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation said that the joint statement of Biden's visit will be called the "Jerusalem Declaration", in which Washington will commit to Israel's security.
Al-Jazeera correspondent Elias Karam said that the Israeli Prime Minister had instructed to postpone the ratification of a plan to build two thousand new settlement units in occupied Jerusalem.
He added that the Israeli government fears that the ratification of these settlements will cause a diplomatic clash with the American side, as happened in 2010, when Tel Aviv announced the construction of hundreds of settlement units in the Ramat Shlomo settlement, when Biden was on a visit to Israel as Vice President Barack Obama.
For her part, Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Ben Shaul said that the settlement construction plan postponed due to Biden's visit will be presented next week for approval.
Facilitations for the Palestinians
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced what he called "facilitations for the Palestinians", which consist in approving 5,500 new family unification requests, in addition to the 12,000 previously approved, as well as expanding the structural plans for construction in 6 Palestinian communities in the West Bank. West and around Jerusalem.
It was also decided to increase the number of work permits in Israel for Palestinians from the Gaza Strip by 1,500, bringing the total number to 15,500 work permits, in addition to reopening the Kerem Shalom crossing in the northern West Bank to allow Palestinians to enter from inside the Green Line.
Neither the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank nor Hamas in the Gaza Strip has the authority to make any change to the population registry, other than registering births and deaths and replacing personal identity cards.
The last batch of Israeli approvals for family unification requests for Palestinians was issued on February 4 last, and at that time included Israeli approval of 700 family unification requests.
Jerusalem Declaration
In a related context, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (governmental) quoted an Israeli official as saying that the US President and the Israeli Prime Minister will sign a joint statement called the "Jerusalem Declaration", in which Washington will commit itself to Israel's security.
He added that the upcoming announcement will emphasize strengthening normalization between Arab countries and Israel, in addition to expanding the scope of the countries involved in peace agreements.
According to the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation, the declaration will pledge not to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, and to allow Israel to defend itself against any Iranian attacks.
And the White House had previously announced that Biden would make his first visit to the Middle East between July 13-16, including Israel and the West Bank, before taking off directly from Tel Aviv to Saudi Arabia.
The US President will also attend in the Saudi city of Jeddah, on the last day of his visit, a summit that includes the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, in addition to Egypt, Iraq and Jordan.