PLO: Families of prisoners to continue receiving stipends

Palestine

Published: 2018-06-26 17:29

Last Updated: 2024-03-29 14:20


Donald Trump and Mahmoud Abbas (file photo)
Donald Trump and Mahmoud Abbas (file photo)

Payments allocated to the families of Palestinian prisoners in Israel will not cease as they are among the non-negotiable basic rights of Palestinians, asserted Ahmed Abu Houli, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), WAFA news agency reported.

His remarks came on Tuesday in response to media reports that the US has frozen aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) as part of enacting its Taylor Force Act.

Abu Houli, also in charge of the refugees affairs department in the PLO, asserted that Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees’ right of return as well as UNRWA activities were a red line that 'we will not allow any party to bypass, circumvent or remove from any future negotiations.”

He explained that the financial crisis looming over the UN agency is on the priority list of the PLO because of the political implications its demise would have on the issue of refugees, urging donor countries to raise their contributions.

His remarks preceded the statement of Palestinian President Spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, who also defied the US administration and its “deal of the century” in a Tuesday statement. In it he stressed on the need to establish an international mechanism for reaching a Palestinian-Israeli agreement that is not reliant on a unilateral US control that perpetuates Israeli occupation.

He stressed that “these suspicious proposals, which try to harm the national project and the Palestinian national identity, require courageous national positions to preserve Jerusalem, the identity and the land, not through contacts or messages that give up our right to establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”