Region

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — More than a million people fleeing Syria's war have registered as refugees in Lebanon, the UN said Thursday, with many living in misery in a tiny country overstretched by the crisis.

And the number is swelling by the day, with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) saying it registers 2,500 new refugees in Lebanon every day — more than one a minute.

At a crowded centre in Tripoli, Lebanon's second city, hundreds of refugees were seen on Thursday queueing to register.

Yehia, an 18-year-old from Homs, was identified by as the millionth refugee to be registered.

He told AFP he lives in a garage in Dinniyeh, near Tripoli, with his mother and two sisters.

His father, a carpenter, was killed by a sniper in 2011, six months after the revolt against President Bashar Assad broke out.

"It is a disaster," said Yehia. "My mother sold all her gold so we could pay the $250 (191 euros) monthly rent. We don't know what will happen to us in the future."

His main wish is to go back to school to finish his studies, which were interrupted by the war.

"The fact that there were one million Syrians before me who are going hungry, even dying here is very painful," Yehia said sorrowfully.

The UNHCR says that Syrian refugees, half of them children, now equal a quarter of Lebanon's resident population, warning that most of them live in poverty and depend on aid for survival.

UNHCR representative Ninette Kelly branded the one million figure as "a devastating marker".

"Each one of these numbers represents a human life who, like us, have lives of their own, but who've lost their homes, they've lost their family members, have lost their future," she told reporters.

Kelly said Lebanon has become the country with the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world.

Lebanon "is literally staggering under the weight of this problem. Its social services are stressed, health, education, its very fragile infrastructure is also buckling under the pressure."

The massive crisis is compounded by a spillover of the violence that has ravaged Syria for the past three years, with Lebanon experiencing frequent bombings and clashes even as it grapples with political deadlock and an economic downturn.

In a statement, UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres urged increased international action to help Lebanon deal with this "immense" and "staggering" crisis.

Social Affairs Minister Rachid Derbas also appealed for support, saying Lebanon "cannot carry this burden alone."

The strain has been particularly felt in the public sector, with health and education services, as well as electricity, water and sanitation affected.

The humanitarian appeal for Lebanon "is only 14 per cent funded," even as the needs of a rapidly growing refugee population become ever more pressing, Kelly said.

Girls married young

The vast majority of refugee children are not attending school.

"The number of school-aged children is now over 400,000, eclipsing the number of Lebanese children in public schools. These schools have opened their doors to over 100,000 refugees, yet the ability to accept more is severely limited," the UNHCR said.

Because of the dire economic situation their families endure, many children are now working, "girls can be married young and the prospect of a better future recedes the longer they remain out of school," it added.

Walid, a 22-year-old who shines shoes to scrape out a living in Tripoli, said: "Our situation is very sad, and we refugees really live from hand to mouth."

Unlike Turkey and Jordan, which are also hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrians, Lebanon has not set up official camps.

Alaa Ajam, owner of a foreign exchange shop in Tripoli, said "of course (the refugee crisis) is a burden... We are in solidarity with the Syrians, but like other countries we should have camps."

Tens of thousands of families live in insalubrious informal settlements dotted around the country, many of them near the restive border with Syria.

The conflict has killed more than 150,000 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, with half of the population estimated to have fled their homes.

ADEN — Al Qaeda has claimed an attack on a Yemeni army headquarters in a tightly secured district of Aden in which 20 people died, most of them militants, a monitoring group said Thursday.

The building targeted in Wednesday’s attack is located in the heavily patrolled coastal district of Tawahi that hosts intelligence and political police headquarters, a naval base and a presidential residence.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) affiliate of the global jihadist network claimed the attack in an online message, said the US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist organisations.

AQAP, which the United States views as Al Qaeda’s most dangerous branch, said the attack killed “nearly 50 soldiers” and was part of its campaign to “target the joint operation rooms that manage the US drones in the country”.

Washington has stepped up drone strikes in Yemen against the group in recent months.

Militants launched Wednesday’s attack on the northern side of the army headquarters, with some climbing a wall into the building as a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a western entrance, Yemen army officials said.

Reinforcements from the 31st Armoured Brigade stationed in Aden were dispatched to support the troops in Tawahi, according to one official, who added that the fighting went on for several hours.

Six soldiers were killed and 14 wounded, while three civilians including a seven-year-old child also died, the official added. Ten of the assailants plus the suicide bomber died.

Despite repeated attempts by the army to crush AQAP in its strongholds in the east and south, militants continue to carry out deadly attacks on security forces across the country.

The brazen attack on such a highly protected area came despite the authorities having stepped up measures in recent weeks to contain a deadly wave of violence rocking the Arabian Peninsula country for years.

Wednesday’s assault is similar to one carried out by gunmen from Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar Al Sharia on an army headquarters in Hadramawt in September, in which they took hostages and 12 people died.

In December, Al Qaeda militants launched a daylight assault on the defence ministry, killing 56 people.

The group has taken advantage of the weakening of the central government since 2011, as a result of a popular uprising that toppled president Ali Abdullah Saleh after 33 years in power.

ALGIERS — The United States and Algeria pledged Thursday to work together to battle terrorism, as US Secretary of State John Kerry paid his first visit to the north African nation.

“Algeria, which has paid a heavy toll to terrorism, will never bow in front of this scourge,” Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra said at the opening of strategic talks between the two countries.

“Terrorism knows no boundaries, has no creed, no religion and targets all nations,” he added.

But he called for more intelligence sharing from the United States in the fight against Islamist militancy, and greater coordination among regional law enforcement agencies as well as for border monitoring.

Jihadist violence has plagued the vast Sahel-Sahara region since the 2011 overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi, prompting a French-led military intervention in Algeria’s southern neighbour Mali in January 2013 after Al Qaeda-linked groups seized control of the country’s north.

But militants have also struck in Niger, Tunisia and Algeria itself, where they overran a desert gas plant last year triggering a bloody four-day siege in which some 40 hostages were killed.

Lamamra said his country was committed to working with all its partners “to stand in the way of this peril, and to eradicate this scourge”.

One of Algeria’s major concerns was the situation in the Sahel, where “terrorism, human trafficking, drug trafficking and all kinds of criminal activities have woven their webs,” he said.

This threatened “the stability and very existence of the peoples and states of the area”.

Kerry, who arrived late Wednesday amid tight security, said Washington wanted to partner with Algeria to build a more robust defence relationship and help secure and strengthen borders in the region.

He also vowed that the United States would work with Algeria to try to stem the unrest in the lawless Sahel region, which stretches across several north African nations.

“We are grateful, very grateful, for Algeria’s efforts in Mali and Niger, which underscore Algeria’s constructive role in regional stability not only in the east, but to the south.”

Kerry said one of the ways to fight terrorism was to help create jobs and ensure stability in people’s lives.

“Those who offer the violence that comes with terrorism, don’t offer jobs, they don’t offer education, they don’t offer healthcare, they don’t have a programme to pull a country together.”

Such terror groups are in direct “confrontation with modernity”, he warned.

Algeria’s independent press has questioned the timing of Kerry’s visit, which comes as campaigning is in full swing for an April 17 presidential election in which ailing incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika is controversially seeking a fourth term.

El Watan newspaper voiced concern that Bouteflika’s campaign team would portray the visit as a US “endorsement” of the 77-year-old’s re-election bid.

Human Rights Watch has accused the authorities of seeking to “stifle” freedom of association ahead of the poll.

Kerry met Bouteflika on Thursday afternoon, with only a small group of staff, before his planned departure for Morocco.

But in a nod to the criticism, he said Washington was looking forward to free, transparent elections.

“The United States will work with the president that the people of Algeria choose in order to bring about the future that Algeria and its neighbours deserve.”

Kerry said such a future was one where “citizens can enjoy the free exercise of their civil, political, and human rights, and where global companies, businesses, are confident in being able to invest for the long haul.”

BEIRUT — Battles raged Thursday over key flashpoints in Syria’s Latakia province, a monitor said, nearly two weeks into a rebel offensive against the heartland of President Bashar Assad’s clan and Alawite sect.

Fighting was especially fierce over a strategic hilltop known as Observatory 45, overrun by rebels last week, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“Since last night, the fighting has been focused on observatory 45. The army advances and takes over, then the rebels advance and push them back out,” said its director, Rami Abdel Rahman.

Supporting the army and militia on the ground, the air force launched several strikes targeting the hill, the Britain-based monitor said.

Regime warplanes also struck rebel-held areas in the nearby Jabal Akrad area, a hill district under insurgent control for many months.

Rebels and their jihadist ally Al Nusra Front launched a major surprise offensive on Latakia nearly two weeks ago, and have since seized several positions and villages including the Kasab area, home to a border crossing into Turkey.

Hundreds of fighters on both sides have been killed in the battles for Latakia, including 20 rebels killed in the past day alone, said the observatory.

Just over a week into the fighting, opposition chief Ahmad Jarba visited several rebel areas of Latakia, expressing support for the opposition fighters there and pledging funding.

But on Thursday, rebel chief for the area Mustafa Hashim accused the opposition National Coalition of failing to honour its promises.

“We hear from the radio and television channels that the president of the National Coalition visited the coast [Latakia] to have his picture taken and to divide the revolutionaries’ ranks,” said Hashim in a statement posted on YouTube.

“They [the Coalition] say they are giving military support to the revolutionaries but this is not true to this day,” he added.

Elsewhere, four mortar rounds hit the Dukhaniyeh area near Damascus, killing six children and wounding five other people, said state news agency SANA.

Seven others were wounded in central Damascus, in three mortar attacks, one of which struck near the landmark Umayyad Square, SANA said.

More than 150,000 people have been killed in Syria’s three-year war, with half the population estimated to have fled their homes.

WASHINGTON — Eleven Western and Middle Eastern powers on Thursday warned Syrian President Bashar Assad against holding elections, saying that the vote would have no credibility amid the country’s brutal civil war.

In a joint statement, the 11 core members of so-called Friends of Syria urged Assad instead to embrace a plan outlined in Geneva talks that includes a transitional government as a way out of the three-year war.

“Elections organised by the Assad regime would be a parody of democracy, would reveal the regime’s rejection of the basis of the Geneva talks and would deepen the division of Syria,” said the statement, as issued by the US State Department.

The 11 nations include Western powers the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy as well as key regional opponents of Assad: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Arab powers Egypt and Jordan are also part of the group, which does not include Assad’s allies Russia and Iran.

The statement said that a credible election would be impossible with millions of Syrians displaced.

“Bashar Assad intends these elections to sustain his dictatorship,” it said.

“An electoral process led by Assad, whom the United Nations considers to have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, mocks the innocent lives lost in the conflict,” it said.

Assad — whose family has ruled Syria for more than four decades — has not announced his candidacy in elections expected before July but is widely expected to run.

Parliament has approved a law that essentially bars opposition candidates from running, virtually ensuring Assad’s re-election.

The US State Department earlier described Assad’s prospective re-election campaign as “disgusting”.

VIENNA — Iran and six world powers began an expert-level meeting about Tehran’s nuclear programme on Thursday, part of efforts to reach an agreement by late July on how to resolve a decade-old dispute that has stirred fears of a Middle East war.

The meeting in Vienna of nuclear and other experts from Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Russia, China and Britain was to prepare for a new round of higher-level negotiations next week, also in the Austrian capital.

A spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton — whose office is coordinating contacts with Iran on behalf of the big powers — confirmed that the meeting had started but gave no details. Officials earlier said they were expected to last until Saturday.

The April 8-9 meeting of chief negotiators — including Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif — will be the third round of talks at that level since February.

The aim is to hammer out a long-term deal by July 20 that would define the permissible scope of Iran’s nuclear programme in return for a lifting of sanctions that are severely battering its oil-dependent economy.

Both sides have made clear their political commitment to reach a comprehensive agreement but officials acknowledge that success is far from guaranteed in view of decades of mutual mistrust and big differences over the issues involved.

The powers want Iran to significantly scale back its nuclear activities in order to deny it any capability of quickly diverting them to the production of a nuclear bomb, if it decided to “weaponise” its enrichment of uranium.

Iran says its enrichment programme is a peaceful bid to generate electricity and has ruled out shutting any of its nuclear facilities. It denies having any nuclear bomb designs.

US President Barack Obama, like his predecessors, has said that all options are on the table with regard to Iran’s nuclear programme, using diplomatic code for the possibility of military action if diplomacy fails to settle the dispute.

In November, Iran and the six nations agreed an interim accord to curb Tehran’s atomic activities in exchange for some easing of sanctions. The six-month deal, which took effect on January 20, was designed to buy time for talks on a long-term deal.

Robert Einhorn, a former senior US State Department official dealing with Iran, said the positions of the parties — especially the United States and Iran — remained far apart.

“Key differences exist on the requirements of an acceptable deal, not just among negotiators at the table but also among key players outside the negotiations,” Einhorn said in a new report for the Brookings think tank in Washington.

BENGHAZI, Libya — Rebels demanding autonomy for eastern Libya said Thursday they had made progress in talks with the central government on reopening key oil ports that they closed to exports last July.

A rebel spokesman said a first port might reopen as early as next week, raising hopes of an end to the nine-month blockade which has slashed Libyan oil exports from 1.5 million barrels a day to just 250,000 in a massive blow to the economy.

The prospects of a return of Libyan supplies to the market prompted a sharp fall in world oil prices. Brent North Sea crude for May shed $1.16 to stand at $104.46 a barrel in midday London deals.

Wednesday’s meeting in the rebel-held port of Brega came two weeks after US Navy SEALs seized a tanker loaded with rebel oil in international waters in the Mediterranean, effectively ending their hopes of exporting crude in defiance of the central government.

The Tripoli authorities on Monday released three rebels who had been detained on the tanker in a bid to advance the negotiations.

“We met yesterday [Wednesday] with a government delegation headed by interim finance minister Marajaa Ghaith and we reached agreement on several points,” said rebel spokesman Ali Al Hassi.

“The government gave a positive reception to the issues that we raised,” he said, adding that the first of the five main export terminals held by the rebels could be reopened early next week.

The Tripoli authorities denied that there had been any direct talks with the rebels, insisting in a statement late on Thursday that the negotiations had been conducted through intermediaries from the region’s powerful tribes.

Neither side gave any details of the agreement under discussion.

But a source close to the negotiations said the rebels were demanding a referendum on restoring the autonomy that the eastern Cyrenaica region enjoyed for the first 12 years after Libyan independence in 1951.

They were also demanding full back pay for their men, who were employed as security guards at the oil terminals before launching their blockade.

The eastern oil terminals were a key battleground in the NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed veteran dictator Muammar Qadhafi in 2011, changing hands several times before the rebels finally captured them.

The source said that the talks were “serious” and that, if they bore fruit, it was proposed that the Zueitina export terminal be the first to reopen.

‘Crisis they created’ 

The head of the rebels’ self-declared regional government Ibrahim Jodhran said he had decided to seek a solution “through dialogue to cut short foreign intervention”.

A Western diplomat in Tripoli said the rebels were “trying to find a way out of the crisis they created” with last month’s abortive oil export attempt which prompted the intervention of the US Navy and a March 19 UN Security Council resolution outlawing all unauthorised Libyan oil exports.

The Tripoli government’s failure to stop the Morning Glory plunged Libya into one of its biggest crises since Qadhafi’s overthrow.

The ship’s escape after authorities had repeatedly vowed to take all measures to stop it underscored the weakness of the central government, which has struggled to rein in heavily armed former rebels.

The then-prime minister Ali Zeidan fled to Germany as he was forced from office by a vote of no confidence in parliament.

The Tripoli authorities had threatened to launch an armed assault on the rebel-held oil ports using loyalist militias to supplement the weak regular army.

But a two-week ultimatum issued on March 12 was quietly dropped in favour of the search for a compromise.

Parliament chief Nuri Abu Sahmein told Al-Naba television Wednesday that the blockade has cost Libya more than $14 billion in lost oil revenues.

Market analysts said rising expectations of an end to the blockade were having a major dampening effect on world prices.

“The expectation of a growing oil supply from Libya [is] continuing to weigh,” noted Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch.

Gary Hornby of British energy consultancy Inenco said: “A deal could be struck within the next two to three days, which could see Libyan oil exports boosted by approximately 600,000 bpd, quadrupling current export levels.”

CAIRO — Two bombs targeting security posts near Cairo University exploded in quick succession Wednesday killing a police general, followed by a third blast as police and journalists gathered at the scene.

Witnesses said the blasts sent up a cloud of smoke and dust near the campus, the scene of repeated clashes in the past few months between Islamist students and police.

The third bomb struck close to the main gates, where police investigators and journalists had gathered, causing no casualties.

The bombings were the latest in a spate of attacks against the security forces since the army overthrew elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last July.

They came less than a week after the army chief who toppled Morsi, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, said he was leaving the military to stand in a presidential election set for May.

A fourth bomb placed in a car parked near the university was defused, security officials and state television said.

The interior ministry identified the slain officer as Brigadier General Tarek Al Mergawi.

An assistant interior minister, Major General Abdel Raouf Al Serafi, and four other policemen were wounded.

“I was waiting for the bus when I heard two explosions. There was dust in the air and policemen were screaming,” said a witness, Sakta Mostafa.

A police general at the scene told AFP that the bombs were concealed in a tree between two small police posts.

A Cairo University student said he ran out of the campus after hearing the blasts.

“I found a lifeless man in plain clothes and a policeman bleeding from his leg,” said the student, Amr Adel.

A senior detective, Mergawi would have been in civilian clothes.

Cloud of smoke 

Amateur footage posted on an Egyptian newspaper’s website showed policemen running out from a cloud of smoke and dust sent up by the first explosion.

The second bomb went off moments later.

Interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab led Mergawi’s funeral procession, as policemen carried the coffin draped in a red shroud.

The government says militants have killed almost 500 people, most of them policemen and soldiers, in attacks since Morsi’s overthrow.

Most of the attacks have taken place in the lawless Sinai Peninsula but the jihadists have increasingly targeted police in the capital and in the Nile Delta to its north.

The government has blamed most of the violence on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, which it designated a terror group late last year even though the deadliest attacks have all been claimed by Al Qaeda-inspired Ansar Beit Al Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem) group, which is based in the Sinai.

The Brotherhood condemned the latest bombings, as it has previous attacks on the security forces, insisting it remained committed to peaceful protest.

It called for an investigation, urging people to “refrain from making accusations without evidence”.

“Such acts will not deter us from continuing our peaceful march to achieve the objectives of our legitimate revolution,” it said.

Even though Morsi and most of its top leadership are in jail, the Brotherhood has vowed to keep up its campaign for the reinstatement of Egypt’s only freely elected president.

More than 1,400 people, mostly Islamists, have been killed since Morsi’s overthrow.

Some of the Brotherhood’s top leaders have sought refuge in London, where British Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered a probe into the group’s activities.

Police have scored some successes in their fight against the jihadists, killing and capturing members of two major cells in the Nile Delta over the past two months.

One of the cells, belonging to Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, was implicated in a car bombing at Cairo police headquarters in January.

BAGHDAD — Attacks against security forces killed 14 people Wednesday as the UN’s envoy to Iraq warned that the country’s election campaign would be “highly divisive” amid a year-long surge in bloodshed.

The attacks came on the second day of campaigning for April 30 parliamentary polls, Iraq’s first since March 2010.

Violence is at its highest since 2008 and the country is still struggling to rebuild its battered economy and infrastructure after decades of conflict.

UN special envoy Nickolay Mladenov, in an interview with AFP, underscored fears the polls could worsen a long-standing political deadlock in which Iraq’s fractious national unity government has passed little in the way of significant legislation.

On Wednesday morning, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to an army recruitment centre in northern Iraq, killing six would-be soldiers and wounding 14 others, a general and a doctor said.

The attack struck in Riyadh, a mostly-Sunni town in ethnically mixed Kirkuk province.

Elsewhere in Kirkuk, separate bombings targeting the military killed six soldiers and wounded 14 others, while attacks in Kut, south of the capital, and the main northern city of Mosul, left two policemen dead.

Near-daily bloodshed is part of a long list of voter concerns that include lengthy power cuts and poor running water and sewerage services, rampant corruption and high unemployment.

But campaigns are rarely fought on individual issues, with parties instead appealing to voters’ ethnic, sectarian or tribal allegiances or resorting to trumpeting well-known personalities.

A lack of effort at cross-sectarian politics could, Mladenov said, be a major issue.

“Campaigning will be highly divisive,” he told AFP from his office in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone complex.

“Everyone is ratcheting it up to the maximum, and you could see this even before officially the campaign started.”

‘Personality attacks’

The former Bulgarian foreign and defence minister added: “I would hope that it would be more about issues, and how the country deals with its challenges, but at this point, it’s a lot about personality attacks.”

“The efforts to reach across the sectarian divide are very weak.”

He declined to name specific offenders, instead blaming “all the political parties” for the rhetoric.

The sharp rise in violence during the past year has fuelled fears Iraq is slipping back into the sort of all-out communal conflict that killed tens of thousands in 2006 and 2007.

UN figures released Tuesday put the toll for March at 592 dead.

That did not include the conflict-hit desert province of Anbar, where militants have kept control of the town of Fallujah, a short drive from Baghdad, for nearly three months.

Mladenov also pushed for lawmakers to urgently pass the annual budget, which has languished in parliament over an energy dispute between the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region.

“I think the window closes in about two weeks,” Mladenov said of budget negotiations, because any longer would risk turning the spending bill into an election issue, likely further complicating the talks.

He continued: “It’s a concern that if you wait for the deal after the elections, that deal, whatever the results of the election, will be delayed, and inevitably made more difficult.”

Asked what the impact would be if the budget were further delayed, or not agreed this year, he replied: “It’s bad for the business climate, it’s unpredictable, it puts projects on hold. So, from an investment perspective, you plan to do certain things and now you can’t pay for them.”

“It’s also bad from an accountability perspective.”

The tensions between Baghdad and Kurdish authorities in the northern city of Erbil have long been cited as among the biggest threats to long-term stability.

Along with the dispute over oil exports, Erbil wants to incorporate a vast swathe of territory stretching from Iran to Syria into its three-province autonomous region over the central government’s objections.

RAMALLAH — The Palestinians expressed full backing Wednesday for US efforts to salvage crisis-hit peace talks, despite a controversial move to seek international recognition after Israel stalled a release of prisoners.

US Secretary of State John Kerry was on Wednesday scrambling to save his faltering Middle East peace efforts just hours after the Palestinians publicly reneged on a commitment to freeze such moves.

The announcement was a blow to Kerry’s frenetic efforts to resolve a dispute over Palestinian prisoners and find a way to extend the fragile talks with Israel beyond an April 29 deadline.

What triggered the crisis was Israel’s refusal to release 26 Palestinian prisoners by a weekend deadline, prompting a Palestinian move to sign 15 international treaties as a way of unilaterally furthering their claim for statehood.

Shortly afterwards, Kerry said he was cancelling an imminent trip to the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Despite the move, a senior Palestinian official insisted Ramallah was committed to the US peace efforts and hoped Kerry’s efforts would be renewed “in the coming days”.

“Kerry knows the reality. We don’t want these efforts to finish,” said Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s executive committee.

“The Palestinian leadership... wants the political process to continue. But we want a real political process, without tricks,” he told reporters in Ramallah.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al Malki echoed the support for talks, but said the membership request for the international conventions had been submitted.

“I presented the letters signed by [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas this morning to UN special envoy Robert Serry,” said Malki. “This action does not detract from the importance of negotiations. We are still committed to these talks.”

Abbas’ announcement came soon after Kerry had wrapped up a 15-hour visit to Jerusalem during which he met twice with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sources said the two had discussed an emerging proposal to resolve the prisoner issue and ensure the continuation of the peace process into 2015.

With the process hanging in the balance, the Arab League announced an emergency meeting of foreign ministers on April 9 to discuss Israel’s refusal to release prisoners.

Damage limitation 

The release of a last batch of Palestinian prisoners was part of a reciprocal arrangement which facilitated a resumption of peace talks in July 2013.

In exchange, the Palestinians had pledged to freeze all moves to seek membership in UN organisations.

With both sides breaching the agreement, Kerry was scrambling to save his flagship peace efforts, which appeared on the brink of complete collapse.

“It is completely premature tonight to draw... any final judgement about today’s events and where things are,” he said on Tuesday night.

But by Wednesday morning, it was clear he and his staff had gone into damage limitation mode as he worked the phone from Brussels.

The Palestinians have repeatedly said when the nine-month peace talks end on April 29, they would resume moves to join UN agencies to further legal claims against Israel over its settlement construction on land they want for a future state.

Abbas said the first of the 15 treatises he had signed on Tuesday was the Fourth Geneva Convention, which is of direct relevance to the settlements because it bars the transfer by an occupying power of its own civilian population into the territory that it occupies.

In Israel, there was surprise and anger over the Palestinian move.

“Is this a partner for peace?” asked a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Everything has changed now. Is there even a deal now? We don’t know.”

One hardline minister warned it would cost the Palestinians dearly.

“They will pay a heavy price,” Tourism Minster Uzi Landau told public radio, warning Israel could “apply sovereignty” over unspecified areas of the occupied West Bank.

Robbie Sabel, professor of law at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, said the Palestinians were only planning to become a party to various international treaties, in a move which was “purely symbolic”.

“The reason Israel is unhappy about it is because it reinforces the Palestinian belief that somehow the UN will deliver them a state,” he said.

“Beyond that, there’s no real substance to what they’re doing.”