Fuming over UN vote, Israel suspends Palestinian foreign minister's travel card

The Israeli regime has suspended a VIP card used by the Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki to travel in and around the occupied territories.

The regime invalidated the pass on Sunday after a day earlier, it had taken the same move against three officials of the Palestinian Fatah Party following the trio's visit to a recently-freed Palestinian prisoner, who had spent four decades in an Israeli jail.

The cards were used to facilitate the officials' travels in and around the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories and the 1967 occupied West Bank, and also to enable them to go from the West Bank to Jordan and vice versa.

Israel revokes 'entry permits' for three senior Fatah officials, after they meet with freed prisoner

Israel revokes "entry permits" for three senior Palestinian officials after they meet with a prisoner recently released from the regime

Israeli forces confiscated Foreign Minister al-Maliki's travel card as he crossed from Jordan into the occupied West Bank, his office said.

"The foreign minister will continue his job and his diplomatic activities with or without the card,” Ahmed al-Deek, an aide to Maliki, added.

Also on Sunday, Israel's new far-right minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, ordered the regime’s forces to remove Palestinian flags from public spaces.

He also announced a plan to cancel regulations that allow any lawmaker to meet with Palestinian freedom fighters incarcerated in Israeli jails.

Ben-Gvir issued a statement, saying he had informed Knesset speaker Amir Ohana that he intends to return to an older protocol, according to which only one lawmaker from each faction will be allowed to visit the Palestinian prisoners, provided that visits be held under strict supervision.

Ben Gvir himself has been convicted several times for supporting Jewish terror and for incitement to racism against Arabs and non-Jews.

Last week, Ben Gvir visited the recently renovated high-security Nafha Prison to review the imprisonment conditions of the Palestinian political prisoners and to ensure these conditions never improve.

The measures are part of a raft of moves that the regime's so-called security cabinet has been taking since Friday in response to the United Nations General Assembly's vote to refer Tel Aviv's occupation of the Palestinian territories to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

UN asks International Court of Justice for legal opinion on Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories

The UN General Assembly adopts a resolution asking the International Court of Justice for its opinion on the Israeli occupation.

The regime has been fuming since December 30, when the General Assembly adopted the resolution asking the ICJ for its legal opinion on the occupation.

In televised remarks to the Israeli cabinet on Sunday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the regime's retaliatory decisions entailed, among other measures, "sanctions against senior Palestinian figures."

"The Palestinian Authority has promoted an extremist anti-Israeli resolution at the United Nations," Netanyahu said.

Also on Friday, the Israeli regime moved to withhold millions of dollars in revenues from the Palestinian Authority and impose a moratorium on Palestinian construction projects in most of the West Bank. 

Palestinian officials have condemned the Israeli measures, saying that they will continue trying to gain support abroad.

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