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Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP)
The General Authority for Palestinian Civil Affairs announced Sunday in a statement the resumption of work at its offices in several Palestinian cities, starting Monday, less than a week after the Israeli and Palestinian sides announced the return of security coordination. .
The organization, whose work has been suspended for about six months, is responsible for organizing the daily civil relationship between the Palestinians and the Israeli side regarding birth registration, issuance of passports and issuance of entry permits to Israel. , through its relationship with the Israeli Civil Administration.
Palestinian Authority Minister for Civil Affairs Hussein al-Sheikh on Tuesday announced the return of security coordination between the Palestinian Authority and Israel to what it was before May 19, 2020, when the Authority announced its official suspension. .
The Palestinian Authority’s decision to stop the coordination came as a form of protest against the US peace plan in the Middle East, which US President Donald Trump unveiled in January, and gave the green light. to Israel to annex the Jordan Valley, the strategic area that makes up 30 percent of the West Bank.
Following the suspension of coordination, the Palestinians began to go directly to the Israeli Civil Administration to finalize their transactions that require Israeli approval, or by contacting the Facebook page of the Coordinator of Activities of the Government of Israel in the Palestinian Territories.
In its statement, Palestinian Civil Affairs called on the Palestinians “not to go to the so-called Israeli Civil Administration, and not to deal with the so-called Coordinator page.”
According to Palestinian sources, thousands of Palestinian newborns, who were born after May 19, are not officially registered in Israel. The suspension of coordination led to the accumulation of their files and the files of those wishing to obtain a new Palestinian ID or passport, in the Palestinian Ministry of the Interior from that moment on.
The Oslo Accord signed in 1993 between the Israeli and Palestinian parties stipulated the need to enroll Palestinian newborns in the Israeli party’s registers to be effective, especially at the external borders.
On Thursday, the sheikh announced that he would hold talks with the Israeli side. “I had a meeting today with the Israeli side, in which it was highlighted that the agreements signed between the two parties that are based on international legitimacy are the ones that govern this relationship,” he wrote in a post on his Twitter account.
According to the official Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), the Israeli side represented the coordinator of government activities in the territories, Camille Abu Rukn, at the meeting.
Relations deteriorated after the Palestinian Authority announced in May that it would refuse to receive tax funds that Israel collects for the Palestinian Authority.
This caused a large budget deficit for the Palestinian Authority, which is struggling to cope with the spread of the new Corona virus, and can no longer pay the salaries of its public employees, settling to pay half their salaries.
© 2020 AFP
