Israel Blocks Arab League Chief Nabil Fahmy From Visiting Ramallah To Meet Mahmoud Abbas

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Fahmy said Israel blocked him from visiting Ramallah, where he had planned to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in what would have been his first foreign trip since taking office this month.

Fahmy’s office said the regional bloc’s secretariat was informed by Palestinian authorities “of the Israeli occupation authorities' rejection of a visit... to the occupied Palestinian territories” to meet Abbas in Ramallah.

Al Jazeera

The reports place the intended stop in the occupied West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, and describe the trip as part of Fahmy’s stated aim to support Palestinian resilience.

Middle East Monitor also frames the visit as being intended to “support the resilience of the Palestinian people and meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank,” while noting Fahmy officially assumed his duties on June 1, succeeding Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

Fahmy’s spokesperson said the planned trip was meant to emphasize that the Palestinian cause would remain a top priority, and the reports cite Fahmy calling for action to expose what he described as Israeli occupation practices.

Middle East Monitor quotes Fahmy saying, “It is essential to expose the practices of the Israeli occupation and to bolster the resilience of the Palestinian people,” linking the visit to broader diplomatic pressure.

Al-Jazeera Net

In parallel, L'Orient Today repeats the same core claim that “Israel had blocked him from visiting Ramallah,” and it situates the episode within the Arab League’s role as a forum for regional solidarity concentrated on the Palestinian cause.

L'Orient Today also adds that Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,087 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 2023, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry data, while official Israeli figures cited in the same report say at least 46 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war.

The reports connect the Ramallah travel dispute to the wider war on Gaza and to escalating conditions in the West Bank since Israel’s war began on Oct. 7, 2023.

Middle East Monitor says that since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 173,000 injured, according to Palestinian health authorities, and it adds that about 90% of the enclave’s civilian infrastructure has been affected.

It also states that the West Bank has seen an escalation carried out by the Israeli army and occupiers, killing 1,175 Palestinians, injuring 12,919 others, and leading to the arrest of around 24,000 people, while Middle East Eye describes the occupied West Bank as being “rocked by Israeli military raids, deadly Isreali settler attacks and the expansion of settlements.”

Against that backdrop, the Arab League’s attempt to send its secretary-general to Ramallah is presented in the sources as a test of access and diplomacy, with the Arab League spokesperson stressing that defending a two-state solution requires “continuous action from all countries supporting a just peace” even as Israel refused the visit.