PA Receives Assurances That Elections Will Take Place in Jerusalem

 Head of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission Hanna Nasser during a press conference on Saturday, January 16, 2021 (Wafa News Agency)
Head of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission Hanna Nasser during a press conference on Saturday, January 16, 2021 (Wafa News Agency)
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PA Receives Assurances That Elections Will Take Place in Jerusalem

 Head of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission Hanna Nasser during a press conference on Saturday, January 16, 2021 (Wafa News Agency)
Head of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission Hanna Nasser during a press conference on Saturday, January 16, 2021 (Wafa News Agency)

Palestinian factions will meet in Cairo this week to settle any differences that could hinder holding general elections in the Palestinian territory, according to the Palestinian Central Elections Commission (CEC).

In a press statement in Ramallah, Chairman of the CEC Hanna Nasser said the factions will meet to resolve some technical issues necessary to hold fair and transparent elections.

The meeting in Cairo will be short and will result in a charter of honor for factions to abide by.

“There are no guarantees that elections will be held in the occupied Jerusalem until the moment,” Nasser affirmed, hoping they would take place under certain pressures.

“We have other alternatives, and what is important is that people from Jerusalem can take part in the election,” he added.

On Friday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed a presidential decree announcing dates for the first Palestinian elections in more than 15 years.

He set the date of legislative polls for May 22 and a July 31 presidential vote.

“The President instructed the election committee and all state apparatuses of the state to launch a democratic election process in all cities of the homeland,” the decree said, referring to the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Pa had received assurances from European and Arab countries that elections will be held in Jerusalem.

The sources said that Israel did not approve the election activity yet.

However, several states and parties have promised to ensure that the residents of Jerusalem will be able to participate in the upcoming elections, sources added.

Palestinians in Jerusalem participated twice before in the elections. The first was in the 2005 presidential elections and the second was in the 2006 legislative elections.

Hamas welcomed Abbas’s announcement, saying: “We have worked in past months to resolve all obstacles so that we can reach this day.”

The Palestinian people have the to right choose their leaders and representatives, Hamas noted.

Secretary-General of the Palestinian Central Committee of Fatah Movement Jibril Rajoub said issuing the presidential decree was the first step to revive democracy and build a political system that contributes to achieving unity.



Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.