THE Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned Israel yesterday for vetoing a US proposal to reopen a Jerusalem consulate catering for Palestinians.

The US’s Jerusalem consulate had been its main diplomatic mission for Palestine until then president Donald Trump shut it down in 2019, handing control of relations to the US embassy to Israel in a snub to Palestinian claims to an independent state with its capital in East Jerusalem. 

The Joe Biden administration had pledged to reopen the consulate, but Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett claimed on Saturday there was “no room” in Jerusalem, and any mission to Palestine ought to be set up in the West Bank.