A Palestinian man shot dead in an Arab Israeli town on Friday had reportedly played a role in selling West Bank land to Jewish buyers.
Ahmed Salama, originally a resident of the West Bank city of Qalqilya, was shot and killed near his home in the central Israeli town of Jaljulya.
A Palestinian Authority source told The National they were unaware of the 58-year-old's involvement in land sales.
But Israeli media reports cited Palestinian sources as saying that he had avoided entering Area A of the West Bank, the section of the territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority, for fear of repercussions because of the suspicions around his role in selling West Bank property to Israeli settlers.
Selling Palestinian land to Israelis is considered a betrayal in the Palestinian territories. Since Israel took control of East Jerusalem and the West Bank in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, several Palestinians have been killed by other Palestinians on suspicion of selling property in the contested areas.
Selling land to Israelis is punishable by death under the Palestinian Authority’s penal code but President Mahmoud Abbas has never signed off on such a punishment.
In April, Palestinian religious authorities issued a decree banning the sale of Palestinian property to Israelis. The Palestinian mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, said Palestinians were banned "from giving up, or selling Jerusalem and the land of Palestine to the enemy," a reference to Israel. He said it was forbidden for a Palestinian to take money for his or her property from Israelis because it would assist in the "eviction" of Muslims from their Jerusalem homes over time.
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He had denied any role in selling Palestinian land to Israeli settlers.
His death comes as the issue of land sales rises on the agenda of both sides of the decades-long conflict.
Israel last month arrested the Palestinian governor of Jerusalem over his alleged involvement in a plot to kidnap a Palestinian-American resident of the city accused of selling property there to Jewish buyers.
Israeli authorities accused him of a role in the kidnap on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. Israeli law restricts residents of East Jerusalem from cooperating with the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority has detained Isaam Akel for weeks on suspicion of selling off Palestinian properties. The US ambassador to Israel David Friedman, a far-right supporter of Israel’s settlement enterprise that much of the international community deems to be illegal under international law, has called for his release.
The fact that Mr Salama’s murder took place inside Israel’s borders raises the prospect that the Palestinian Authority or elements linked to the body may be willing to act inside Israel proper and not just occupied territory moving forward.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The biog
Hometown: Cairo
Age: 37
Favourite TV series: The Handmaid’s Tale, Black Mirror
Favourite anime series: Death Note, One Piece and Hellsing
Favourite book: Designing Brand Identity, Fifth Edition
Muguruza's singles career in stats
WTA titles 3
Prize money US$11,128,219 (Dh40,873,133.82)
Wins / losses 293 / 149
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Start-up hopes to end Japan's love affair with cash
Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash still rules. Now, as the country’s biggest web companies race to dominate the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a fighting chance to win with its QR app.
Origami had a head start when it introduced a QR-code payment service in late 2015 and has since signed up fast-food chain KFC, Tokyo’s largest cab company Nihon Kotsu and convenience store operator Lawson. The company raised $66 million in September to expand nationwide and plans to more than double its staff of about 100 employees, says founder Yoshiki Yasui.
Origami is betting that stores, which until now relied on direct mail and email newsletters, will pay for the ability to reach customers on their smartphones. For example, a hair salon using Origami’s payment app would be able to send a message to past customers with a coupon for their next haircut.
Quick Response codes, the dotted squares that can be read by smartphone cameras, were invented in the 1990s by a unit of Toyota Motor to track automotive parts. But when the Japanese pioneered digital payments almost two decades ago with contactless cards for train fares, they chose the so-called near-field communications technology. The high cost of rolling out NFC payments, convenient ATMs and a culture where lost wallets are often returned have all been cited as reasons why cash remains king in the archipelago. In China, however, QR codes dominate.
Cashless payments, which includes credit cards, accounted for just 20 per cent of total consumer spending in Japan during 2016, compared with 60 per cent in China and 89 per cent in South Korea, according to a report by the Bank of Japan.
The End of Loneliness
Benedict Wells
Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins
Sceptre
Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
