HUNDREDS MARCH IN RAMALLAH TO PROTEST NEGOTIATIONS RETURN

Ramallah, 22 Ramadhan 1434/30 July 2013 (MINA) – Hundreds of Palestinians marched in Ramallah on Sunday to protest a return to negotiations with Israel.

Demonstrators marched from the city center towards President Abbas’ headquarters in the Muqata, chanting slogans condemning the Palestinian Authority’s decision to return to talks.

Addameer prisoners group said dozens of protesters were injured by police, adding that PA forces were arresting injured demonstrators at public hospitals.

Four PA police officers and three protesters were injured when both sides clashed during the march, which was organized by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, media sources reported.

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Palestinian Legislative Council member Khaled Jarrar was assaulted by a policeman during the clashes, witnesses said. al Ray media reported monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).

The Palestinian-Israeli talks were halted in September 2010 over disagreements on Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

The PA had previously demanded that Israel cease all settlement activities before talks can be resumed. Israel has refused to do so and says it will to re-launch talks without any preconditions.

On July 19, US Secretary of State John Kerry said if everything goes as expected, Israel-Palestine negotiations will resume soon.

On the same day, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas rejected Kerry’s proposal for the resumption of talks between Israel and the PA, saying it “considers the Palestinian Authority’s return to negotiations with the occupation to be at odds with the national consensus.”

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Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East al-Quds (Jerusalem), and the Gaza Strip and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the Palestinian territories occupied in the Six-Day War of 1967.

Tel Aviv, however, has refused to return to the 1967 borders and is unwilling to discuss the issue of al-Quds. (T/P01/P04).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)