‘Plans for annexation & apartheid’: Palestine blames unrest in West Bank on US ‘deal of the century’

A senior Palestinian official blamed US President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan for the recent turmoil, after the US leader’s son-in-law said local leaders were inciting violence.

“Those who introduce plans for annexation and apartheid and the legalization of occupation and settlements are the ones who bear full responsibility for deepening the cycle of violence and extremism,” Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said in a statement.

His remarks came a day after Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and mastermind behind the so-called ‘deal of the century’, accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of urging his supporters to carry out violence.

"He calls for days of rage in response and he said that even before he saw the plan," Kushner told reporters in New York after meeting with UN Security Council members.

Thursday was marked by several violent incidents. Three Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank. In the early morning, 12 Israeli soldiers were injured in a ramming attack in Jerusalem. Later on the same day, an attacker approached a group of Israeli police, abruptly pulling a gun on them and opening fire, injuring one of them.

After Trump’s peace plan for the region was unveiled in January, various Palestinian factions had a rare moment of unity as they staged protests denouncing occupation. Trump’s plan proposes a Palestinian state in the form of several enclaves mostly surrounded by Israeli territory. While firmly rejected by Palestine, it was hailed by Israel, with PM Benjamin Netanyahu saying that his country is offering Palestinians “conditional, limited sovereignty.”

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