Israeli airstrikes target Gaza amid tensions after Trump's Jerusalem move

Two Palestinians were killed Saturday in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported, as tensions soared in the region after US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces said Israeli aircraft had targeted what it identified as four facilities belonging to Hamas -- the Palestinian Islamist group that controls Gaza -- early Saturday in response to rockets fired into southern Israel from Gaza.

The aircraft targeted two weapons manufacturing sites, a weapons warehouse and a military compound, according to an IDF news release.

The bodies of two Palestinian men aged 28 and 30 were found under rubble after the strikes, WAFA said, quoting the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

A 54-year-old Palestinian man also died late Friday from injuries sustained during an earlier Israeli airstrike in Gaza. The IDF said Israeli aircraft had struck a Hamas training compound and ammunition warehouse in Gaza.

A 30-year-old Palestinian man was shot and killed earlier Friday during clashes between protesters and Israeli security forces over Trump's controversial move. Both Palestinians and Israelis claim Jerusalem as their capital.

More than 300 people were injured Friday across the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, 50 of whom needed hospital treatment, the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Health said.

An Israeli army statement said what it called violent riots had broken out in about 30 locations across the West Bank and Gaza. The main disturbances in the West Bank were in Hebron, Al-Arroub, Tulkarm, Ramallah, Qalqilya and Nablus.

At least 49 people were also injured Thursday during protests over Trump's decision, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

Trump's decision Wednesday to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and commit to moving the US Embassy to the holy city has prompted international condemnation and sparked protests in countries around the globe, from Indonesia and Malaysia to Iraq, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt.

US envoy to UN defends Trump move

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley defended Trump's decision and criticized member countries for their treatment of Israel during an emergency UN Security Council meeting Friday.

She also said the US has credibility with both the Israelis and the Palestinians and that any peace agreement would likely be "signed on the White House lawn."

"The United States is not predetermining final status issues," Haley said.

"We remain committed to achieving a lasting peace agreement. We support a two-state solution if agreed to by the parties."

Several countries voiced their opposition to the US decision before Haley's comments, including France and Egypt.

Tillerson: Embassy move not imminent

Speaking Friday in Paris, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem "is not something that will happen this year, probably not next year."

He also said that Trump's decision did not "indicate any final status for Jerusalem," adding that the "final status would be left to the parties to negotiate and decide."

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas cast doubt on whether he will receive US VicePresident Mike Pence during a planned visit to the region later this month.

Speaking to broadcaster Al Jazeera, spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said: "Jerusalem is more important than Mike Pence -- we will not abandon Jerusalem just to receive Mike Pence."

Former state Sen. Brian Joyce arrested, accused of accepting bribes

Massachusetts state Sen. Brian Joyce was arrested on Friday, federal prosecutors said.

The U.S. Attorney's office for Massachusetts said Friday that Joyce, a Democrat from Milton, had been charged in a 104-page federal indictment. That document accuses Joyce of accepting "a stream of concealed bribes and kickbacks" in exchange for his influence or actions.

"Joyce's objective in conducting and participating in the affairs of the Senate Office enterprise was to secretly profit from his position as State Senator," the indictment said.

The U.S. Attorney's office said the payments Joyce accepted included a Jeep and "hundreds of pounds of free coffee."

The indictment also said that Joyce utilized a shell company to launder the money from his schemes.
Joyce's law office in Canton was raided by the FBI in February 2016 in what was then described as "court-authorized activity in connection with an ongoing federal investigation." His lawyer at the time, Howard Cooper, said Joyce was cooperating and believed he had done nothing wrong.
It was not clear if the charges were related to the raid or past calls for an ethics probe on Beacon Hill.
The lawyer did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

The U.S. Attorney's office scheduled a news conference for approximately 10:30 a.m. Friday.
Joyce, who had served as assistant majority leader, said shortly after the investigation was announced last year that he would not seek re-election to the Senate. He had represented his district since 1998.

In 2015, then-Senate President Stan Rosenberg asked the state Ethics Commission to review Joyce's conduct after The Boston Globe reported on potential conflicts of interest focusing on whether he used his position to boost his law practice.

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker also called for an ethics probe into a reported arrangement that let Joyce receive free dry cleaning from a local shop for more than a decade. The Globe said Joyce took his suits, his family's clothes and sometimes his aides' clothes to Woodlawn Cleaners after owner Jerry Richman offered to clean his clothes for free in 1997.

Joyce's attorneys said at the time he received the service in exchange for free or reduced-price legal services he provided to Richman.

In an unrelated case last year, Joyce agreed to pay nearly $5,000 to resolve issues raised by state campaign finance regulators, including using campaign funds for his son's 2014 high school graduation party. Joyce said there had been no finding of wrongdoing on his part.

The arrest is the second blow to the state Senate in the past week. Rosenberg announced Monday he was stepping aside as president of the chamber during a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into the circumstances surrounding reported sexual misconduct allegations by several men against his husband, Bryon Hefner.

North Korea says U.S. threats make war unavoidable, China urges calm

Two U.S. B-1B heavy bombers joined large-scale combat drills over South Korea on Thursday amid warnings from North Korea that the exercises and U.S. threats have made the outbreak of war “an established fact.”

The annual U.S.-South Korean “Vigilant Ace” exercises feature 230 aircraft, including some of the most advanced U.S. stealth warplanes, and come a week after North Korea tested its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to date, which it says can reach all of the United States.

North Korea’s foreign ministry blamed the drills and “confrontational warmongering” by U.S. officials for making war inevitable.

“The remaining question now is: when will the war break out?” it said in a statement. “We do not wish for a war but shall not hide from it.”

China, North Korea’s neighbor and lone major ally, again urged calm and said war was not the answer, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said North Korea wanted direct talks with the United States to seek guarantees on its security, something Moscow was ready to facilitate.

“We hope all relevant parties can maintain calm and restraint and take steps to alleviate tensions and not provoke each other,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said.

“The outbreak of war is not in any side’s interest. The ones that will suffer the most are ordinary people.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on the sidelines of a conference in Vienna that U.S. military exercises and aggressive rhetoric were causing an unacceptable escalation in tension.

Lavrov said he had passed on to Tillerson Pyongyang’s desire for direct talks.

“We know that North Korea wants above all to talk to the United States about guarantees for its security. We are ready to support that, we are ready to take part in facilitating such negotiations,” Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying.

 

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said direct talks with North Korea were “not on the table until they are willing to denuclearize.”

“It is something that Russia says it agrees with; it is something China has said it agrees with, and many other nations around the world as well,” she told a regular briefing.

Nauert said North Korea was “not showing any interest in sitting down and having any kind of serious conversations when they continue to fire off ballistic missiles.”

Another State Department spokesperson, Justin Higgins, said it was not enough for North Korea to freeze its nuclear program, and it “must be prepared to come to the table ready to chart a course to ‘cease and roll back’” that program.   

China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Zheng Zeguang was to meet Matt Pottinger, the head of Asian affairs at the White House’s National Security Council, on Thursday to discuss North Korea and trade, a senior U.S. official said.

Tensions have risen markedly in recent months over North Korea’s development, in defiance of repeated rounds of U.N. sanctions, of nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Last week’s missile test prompted a U.S. warning that North Korea’s leadership would be “utterly destroyed” if war were to break out. The Pentagon has mounted repeated shows of force after North Korean tests.

STRATEGIC BOMBERS

In September, after North Korea’s sixth and largest nuclear test, B-1Bs flew further north along North Korea’s coast than at any time in the past 17 years. The sortie prompted Pyongyang’s foreign minister to warn that U.S. bombers could be shot down even if they did not enter North Korean airspace.

Yang Uk, a senior fellow at the Korea Defence and Security Forum, said B-1Bs would be key to any strike targeting major North Korean facilities.

“B-1B bombers have been regularly dispatched to the Korean peninsula over the past years; however, it seems that the U.S. Air Force might have enhanced its training to better prepare for actual warfare,” he said.

Both sides insist they don’t want war, while saying they will act to defend themselves.

U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster said at the weekend the possibility of war was “increasing every day.” He said Trump was prepared to take action against North Korea but was working to convince China, Russia and others to do more to press Pyongyang to get it to give up its weapons programs.

U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham urged the Pentagon on Sunday to start moving U.S. military dependants out of South Korea, saying conflict with North Korea was getting close.

The Pentagon said it has “no intent” to move out any dependants. 

On Wednesday, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, raised doubts about U.S. participation in the Olympic Winter Games in South Korea in February, telling Fox News that Washington was concerned about its citizens.

However, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Thursday the United States looked forward to participating in the games and was engaged with South Korea and other nations to secure the venues.

North Korea regularly threatens to destroy South Korea and the United States and says its weapons programs are necessary to counter U.S. aggression. The United States stations 28,500 troops in the South, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

The rising tensions coincide with a rare visit to North Korea by United Nations political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman, the highest-level U.N. official to visit North Korea since 2012.

Some analysts and diplomats hope his visit could spark a U.N.-led effort to defuse tensions. Feltman met North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho on Thursday, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency said.

Palestinians clash with Israeli troops ahead of ‘day of rage’ at Trump’s Jerusalem move

 

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers clashed Thursday in Jerusalem, Ramallah and other places in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with some demonstrators burning American flags and posters of President Trump a day after he sided with Israel by announcing U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as its capital.

But at nightfall, after the skirmishes died down, the region was bracing for worse.

More than 100 people were injured Thursday, according to the Palestine Red Crescent, despite the deployment of several extra battalions of Israeli troops. The critical test comes Friday, when larger demonstrations are expected as crowds leave mosques after the weekly noon prayers.

In Gaza, the Islamist movement Hamas urged its followers to ignite a third intifada, or uprising, against Israel. The Palestinian Authority called for a general strike. Shops were shuttered in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that he would move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and his declaration that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital reversed a decades-old U.S. policy. But the status of the city — holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews and struggled over for millennia — is a deeply charged issue that resonates beyond the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

The backlash rippled across the wider region, with hundreds of demonstrators gathering outside the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Jordan holding placards reading “Decision Rejected” and “No to U.S. arrogance.” Criticisms continued to flow in from governments in the Middle East, Europe and beyond, with U.S. friends and adversaries alike voicing disapproval and alarm.

Turkey’s president predicted that the region would ignite in a “ring of fire,” while European leaders reiterated their opposition to the policy, and 86-year-old Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu declared, “God is weeping.”

In Israel, the decision has been widely welcomed by politicians, who see it as long-overdue recognition of reality and of their historic claim to the city. Palestinians say it is a dangerous breach of U.N. resolutions and international law that ignores their right to a future capital in East Jerusalem. 

On the edge of the Palestinian city of Ramallah on Thursday, Israeli forces fired dozens of rounds of tear gas and stun grenades at hundreds of Palestinian protesters airing their anger over Trump’s statement, moving quickly to disperse the crowd.

“This will be bad,” said an ambulance driver in Ramallah as young men burned tires and pelted the soldiers with stones. Emergency vehicles ferried the injured away.

In some places, notably Gaza, protesters set fire to images of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and to U.S. and Israeli flags.

“Donald Trump said Jerusalem is for Israel, and I tell him, ‘No way, go to hell,’ ” said a 43-year-old woman in the crowd, a traditional Palestinian scarf wrapped around her face. “Jerusalem is for Palestine, forever,” said the woman, who declined to give her name.

“Trump made the wrong decision,” said Sarah Louay, 15, who was making her way toward the demonstration carrying a Palestinian flag. “We will raise our voices for Jerusalem.”

Clashes also erupted in East Jerusalem and at the border fence between Israel and Gaza. In Bethlehem, tear gas filled streets that were strung with festive lights for Christmas. At one of the main checkpoints between Jerusalem and Ramallah, soldiers fired sponge bullets at children throwing stones from behind metal trash containers.

The Israeli military reported that at least three projectiles were fired at its territory Thursday from Gaza but that two fell short and the third caused no damage.

In response, Israeli jets and tanks struck two Hamas military sites in Gaza, the Israeli army said in a statement. The army “holds Hamas responsible for hostile activity . . . against Israel from the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.

How long the demonstrations will last remains unclear. Some Palestinians said they felt emboldened after a perceived victory last summer that followed two weeks of protests over metal detectors installed at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called for a new uprising in the Palestinian territories and declared Friday a day of rage.

“Tomorrow should be a day of rage and the beginning of a broad movement for an uprising that I call the intifada of freedom of Jerusalem,” he said.

 

[Where would a U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem actually go?]

He called on the Palestinian Authority to halt security coordination with Israel and “enable the resistance in the occupied West Bank to respond to this blatant aggression.”

Israel’s army said it was preparing for an increase in violence in the coming days and had increased its strength in the West Bank, reinforcing its combat intelligence and territorial defense units. Israeli police said three people were arrested in connection with “disturbances” near Damascus Gate, a main portal for Jerusalem’s Old City. 

U.S. institutions in the region were also preparing for possible violent fallout. Reuters reported that the State Department sent a note to diplomats at the embassy in Tel Aviv with talking points to convey to Israeli officials.

“While I recognize that you will publicly welcome this news, I ask that you restrain your official response,” Reuters quoted the document, dated Dec. 6, as saying. “We expect there to be resistance to this news in the Middle East and around the world. We are still judging the impact this decision will have on U.S. facilities and personnel overseas.”

The State Department restricted travel for U.S. government employees in Jerusalem and the West Bank, warning U.S. citizens to avoid crowded areas.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the U.S. move would galvanize the Palestinian struggle for independence.

After Trump’s announcement, Abbas said the United States could no longer be a fair mediator in the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. Eight of the U.N. Security Council’s 15 member countries called for an emergency meeting Friday on the matter.

Despite the note of caution from the State Department, the mood in Israel was buoyant, with government ministers and pundits declaring a diplomatic victory for the Jewish state and for Netanyahu.

Speaking at a Foreign Ministry conference in Jerusalem on Thursday, the prime minister heralded Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as a “historic statement.”

“President Trump has always linked himself to the history of our capital,” he said. “His name will now float along with other names in the context of the glorious history of Jerusalem and our people.”
Netanyahu said he has been in contact with other countries that are also ready to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“I have no doubt that as soon as the American Embassy moves to Jerusalem, and even before that, many embassies will move to Jerusalem,” he said. “It’s about time.”

Conservative Arizona Rep. Trent Franks Resigning

Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) is expected to resign from Congress, Roll Call and Politico reported Thursday.

Franks told Roll Call he would make an announcement later Thursday, but did not elaborate on what it would entail.

“The statement will explain,” he said.

Franks huddled with colleagues on the House floor late Thursday afternoon. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) had his arm wrapped around Franks, appearing to be consoling him.

According to Roll Call, rumors of inappropriate behavior circulated before Franks’ announcement.
The eight-term congressman is a social conservative and one of the most aggressive anti-abortion legislators in Congress. He has led the charge, year after year, to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy nationwide and to limit abortion in the District of Columbia. Residents of D.C. protested his efforts in 2012 by lining up outside the Arizona congressman’s office with plastic rats and photos of pot holes, suggesting that he try to fix more pressing problems in the city than women having abortions.

Franks also caused an uproar in 2013 when he claimed during an abortion debate that the “incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low,” defending his bill’s lack of an exception for rape and incest victims.

The congressman is notorious for comparing abortion to slavery and the Holocaust. “What changed peoples mind over slavery?” he asked during a 2013 debate on the D.C. anti-abortion bill. “What changed their minds over the tragedy in Eastern Europe, the horror in Eastern Europe?”

Franks further incensed minority rights groups last year when he introduced legislation to impose criminal penalties on doctors who are suspected of performing abortions based on the race or sex of the fetus, which they warned would codify dangerous stereotypes against women of color.

Los Angeles evacuated as wildfires rage

More than 100,000 residents in the San Fernando Valley remained under evacuation Wednesday as a brush fire that started in the foothills above Sylmar continued to grow.

The Creek fire started Tuesday about 6:30 a.m. and quickly raced out of control as powerful Santa Ana winds pushed it toward houses below.

The fire has destroyed at least 30 homes and scorched 11,377 acres, authorities said.
As crews continue to fight the blaze, some residents are beginning to assess the damage to their foothill properties.

Among the charred landscape off Little Tujunga Canyon Road in Sylmar stood what remained of Rancho Padilla, where nearly 30 horses died in the fire.

“All I could think about was the horses, the horses, the horses. And they were like, ‘Get out, get out, get out,’ ” said Patricia Padilla, whose family owns a ranch there. “The structures can get rebuilt, but the lives of the horses can’t. ... That’s my biggest heartbreak.”

The ranch, which boards horses, had more than 60 housed there, said Virginia Padilla, Patricia’s older sister. That morning, they put the count of dead horses at 29.

One of Virginia’s horses is in the hospital and another, along with her sister’s horse, Scar, are doing fine. Still, they felt for their boarders and the horses they’d lost.

“Honestly, it feels like we lost a big part of our family,” Patricia said. “To see it all gone ... it’s heartbreaking.”

The blaze was 0% contained, and residents had been evacuated from an area covering more than 20 square miles. The fire jumped the 210 Freeway and burned in Shadow Hills to the south, where residents scrambled to evacuate hundreds of horses, alpacas and other animals. About 20 of the 30 homes that have burned were in Little Tujunga, Kagel and Lopez canyons, officials said.

Several exits along the 210 Freeway leading into Sylmar, Pacoima, Shadow Hills and Sunland remain closed, the California Highway Patrol said.

About 2,500 homes are still under threat, and about 900 firefighters are battling the blaze, said Los Angeles County fire inspector Gustavo Medina.

Farther north, in Santa Clarita, firefighters were making significant gains against the Rye fire that had burned toward Magic Mountain on Tuesday afternoon. The fire briefly shut down access to the 5 Freeway from Highway 126 and triggered mandatory evacuations.

Roy DeFilippis, 69, and his wife, Yolanda, 66, had only recently arrived home from a vacation and were excited to spend a nice, relaxing afternoon at a campground west of Santa Clarita when the Rye fire started.

The couple have been on a road trip for weeks, starting out at their home in Nova Scotia and traveling to Simi Valley to spend Thanksgiving with their daughter and her family.

Driving thousands of miles, they faced several challenges. The RV broke down in Kingman, Ariz., and then again as they were traveling in California toward Simi Valley. Roy DeFilippis almost lost control going down a mountain.

On Tuesday afternoon, hewas watching TV, considering whether to drink more coffee or switch to cold beer.

“And all of a sudden, we hear sirens and sirens, and police came out and told us we had to evacuate,” he said.

Walking out of their RV, the couple saw flames as tall as their motor home.

You can also check California Under Fire

They ditched the Honda Civic they’d been hauling. There was no time.

They ensured their most precious cargo — their eight Yorkies, Spike, Zoey, Lacey, Madison, Spencer, Mickey, Sammy and Snickers — were in the RV, and they rushed onto Highway 126.

Late Wednesday morning, they were parked on a gravel lot between Santa Clarita and Fillmore, waiting until the campground was reopened at noon. They weren’t sure whether their car survived.
But Roy DeFilippis, a retiree from Florida, felt like, because they were safe from the fires, it just made for a good story to tell his friends. “Life is a true adventure, isn’t it?” he said.

The fire had burned 7,000 acres and was 5% contained Wednesday. All evacuations and road closures have been lifted.

After five years of drought, California was inundated with one of its wettest winters on record last year, followed by the hottest summer on record. That created a bountiful crop of light grass and vegetation that then shriveled and is now primed to burn.

The Santa Ana winds that have driven the flames are expected to subside by Friday, the National Weather Service said.

California Under Wind-driven Fires

Wind-driven fires tore through California communities Tuesday for the second time in two months, leaving hundreds of homes feared lost and uprooting tens of thousands of people.

The most damaging fire was in Ventura County northwest of Los Angeles, where 150 structures were confirmed destroyed. But a fire official said he suspected "hundreds more'' would be lost when flames died down enough to make a thorough assessment.

In the San Gabriel Mountains foothills of Los Angeles about 45 miles (72 kilometers) away from the city, 30 structures burned. Mayor Eric Garcetti said the gusty winds expected to last most of the week had created a dangerous situation and he urged 150,000 people under mandatory evacuation orders to leave their homes before it's too late.

In addition to prompting hasty evacuations, the fires shut down two freeways for hours and sent heavy, acrid smoke billowing over the Los Angeles area, creating a health hazard for millions.

There were no immediate reports of any deaths. Two people were critically injured in a small San Bernardino County fire, but no other serious injuries were reported. The fires were under investigation and no causes had been found.

The Ventura wildfire exploded to nearly 80 square miles (207 square kilometers) in a matter of hours. It was fanned by dry Santa Ana winds clocked at well over 60 mph (96 kph) and spit embers up to a half-mile (0.8 kilometers) ahead of fire lines.

Lisa Kermode ignored the first evacuation alert that buzzed on her phone when it said the fire was 15 miles (24 kilometers) away from her home. But the flames were nearly on top of her an hour later when she rounded up her three children, still in their pajamas, and told them to grab some jeans so they could leave.

They returned home Tuesday to find their home and world in ashes, including a Christmas tree and the presents they had just bought.

"We got knots in our stomach coming back up here,'' Kermode said. "We lost everything, everything, all our clothes, anything that was important to us. All our family heirlooms — it's not sort of gone, it's completely gone.''

The fires came just eight weeks after the deadliest and most destructive series of wildfires in state history burned through Northern California and its fabled wine country and killed 44 people dead and destroyed 8,900 homes and other buildings.

Fires are not typical in Southern California this time of year but can break out when dry vegetation and too little rain combine with the Santa Ana winds. Hardly any measurable rain has fallen in the region over the past six months.
 
Aerial footage showed dozens of homes in one neighborhood burned to the ground and a large subdivision in jeopardy as embers blew about wildly. Burned-out cars sat on their wheel rims next to destroyed homes.

More than 27,000 people were evacuated, and one firefighter suffered bumps and bruises in a vehicle accident in Ventura County.

Southern California's gusty Santa Ana winds have long contributed to some of the region's most disastrous wildfires. They blow from the inland West toward the Pacific Ocean, speeding up as they squeeze through mountain passes and canyons.

Nearly 180,000 electrical customers in the Ventura County lost power, and schools in the district were closed. Some firefighting efforts were hampered when pumping stations lost power and hydrants ran dry.

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Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's Capital

US President Donald Trump

President Donald Trump told Israeli and Arab leaders on Tuesday that he intends to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a decision that breaks with decades of US policy and risks fueling violence in the Middle East. Senior U.S. officials said Trump on Wednesday is expected to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital while delaying relocating the embassy from Tel Aviv for another six months, though he plans to order his aides to immediately begin planning such a move. US endorsement of Israel’s claim to all of Jerusalem as its capital would reverse long-standing U.S. policy that the city’s status must be decided in negotiations with the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the entire city, home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, who all received telephone calls from Trump, joined a mounting chorus of voices warning that unilateral US steps on Jerusalem would derail a fledgling US-led peace effort and unleash turmoil in the region.click here for more.

The White House said that Trump had also spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime proponent of a US embassy move to Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but a senior Israeli minister welcomed Trump’s decision while vowing that Israel would be prepared for any outbreak of violence. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said that Trump, who promised during the presidential campaign to move the embassy in Israel, would give a speech on Wednesday about his Jerusalem decision. “The president I would say is pretty solid in his thinking at this point,” she said, declining to provide details. Trump notified Abbas “of his intention to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said.

Abbas, in response, “warned of the dangerous consequences such a decision would have to the peace process and to the peace, security and stability of the region and of the world” and also appealed to the Pope and the leaders of Russia, France and Jordan to intervene. The Jordanian monarch, whose dynasty is the custodian of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, told Trump that moving the embassy would have “dangerous repercussions” for the region and would obstruct U.S. efforts to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, according to a palace statement.

King Salman stressed to Trump that any U.S. announcement on the status of Jerusalem would “inflame Muslim feelings all over the world,” the Saudi Press Agency said. None of the leaders’ statements said whether Trump specified the timing of an embassy move, a notion supported by successive governments in Israel, a close U.S. ally.

But U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump was expected to sign a national security waiver – as have his predecessors – keeping the embassy in Tel Aviv for another six months but would commit to setting the move in motion. However, he was not planning to set a specific timetable, the officials said. The Trump administration would need time to overcome logistical issues such as lack of a secure embassy building and staff housing in Jerusalem, according to one U.S. official.

Trump appears intent on satisfying the pro-Israel, right-wing base, including evangelical Christians, that helped him win the presidency but was disappointed when he delayed the embassy move in June. No other country has its embassy in Jerusalem. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed it, an action not recognized internationally.

‘A BIG MISTAKE’

Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz, who met last week with U.S. officials in Washington, told Israel’s Army Radio: “My impression is that the president will recognize Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years, as the capital of the state of Israel.” Asked whether Israel was preparing for a wave of violence if Trump recognizes Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, he said: “We are preparing for every option. Anything like that can always erupt. If Abu Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) will lead it in that direction then he will be making a big mistake.”

Islamist militant groups such as al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah have in the past tried to exploit Muslim sensitivities over Jerusalem to stoke anti-Israel and anti-U.S. sentiment. Asked whether Trump recognized that his Jerusalem decision could spark violence, Sanders said: “A number of things have been looked at that have been weighed into the president’s decision.”

Senior U.S. officials told Reuters some officers in the State Department were also deeply concerned and the European Union, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League all warned that any such declaration would have repercussions across the region. Turkey threatened on Tuesday to cut diplomatic ties with Israel if Trump recognizes Jerusalem.

Katz took to Twitter to reject Turkey’s threat and reiterate Israel’s position on the city, which is one of a long list of stumbling blocks in years of failed peace talks with the Palestinians. A U.S. official said the consensus U.S. intelligence estimate on U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was that it would risk triggering a backlash against Israel, and also potentially against U.S. interests in the Middle East.
It is also likely to upset an Israeli-Palestinian peace push led by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, in pursuit of what the U.S. president has called the “ultimate deal.” The initiative has made little progress. Read Turkey joins US allies in warning Trump over Jerusalem.

The White House said in a statement that in calls with Israeli and Arab leaders, Trump “reaffirmed his commitment to advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks” and “underscored the importance of bilateral cooperation with each partner.” Arab criticism of Trump’s plan contrasted sharply with the praise Washington’s traditional Arab allies heaped on him at the beginning of his administration. They saw Trump as re-engaging in the region after what they perceived as former President Barack Obama’s distancing of himself from them, as well as taking a tougher stand against Iran.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, said on Tuesday that “any action that would undermine” peace efforts to create two separate states for the Israelis and the Palestinians “must absolutely be avoided.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has “consistently warned against any unilateral action that would have the potential to undermine the two-state solution,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

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