Vice President Vance leaves Israel, what he has to say on the annexing of West Bank скачать в хорошем качестве

Vice President Vance leaves Israel, what he has to say on the annexing of West Bank

(ASSOCIATED PRESS) — U.S. Vice President JD Vance criticized on Thursday a symbolic vote in Israel’s parliament the previous day about annexing the occupied West Bank, saying it amounted to an “insult” and went against the Trump administration policies. Hard-liners in the Israeli parliament had narrowly passed a preliminary vote in support of annexing parts of the West Bank — an apparent attempt to embarrass Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while Vance was still in the country. The bill, which required only a simple majority of lawmakers present in the house on Wednesday, passed with a 25-24 vote. But it was unlikely to pass multiple rounds of voting to become law or win a majority in the 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu, who is opposed to it, also has tools to delay or defeat it. Before departing Israel, Vance also unveiled new details about U.S. plans for Gaza, saying he expected reconstruction to begin soon in some “Hamas-free” areas of the territory. But he warned that rebuilding the territory after a devastating two-year war could take years. “The hope is to rebuild Rafah over the next two to three years and theoretically you could have half a million people live (there),” he said, speaking of the strip’s southernmost city. That would account for about a quarter of Gaza’s population of roughly 2 million, 90% of whom were displaced from their homes during the war. Out of every 10 buildings that stood in Gaza prewar, eight are either damaged or flattened. An estimated cost of rebuilding Gaza is about $53 billion, according to the World Bank, the U.N. and the European Union.