Official in UNESCO affiliated youth club banned from travel

The deputy chair of a UNESCO affiliated youth club in Nablus was barred from leaving the West Bank on Saturday. Ghassan Khadir, who chairs the Yafa club for education, culture and science in Balata refugee camp, told Ma'an that Israel authorities interrogated him for four hours at the Allenby bridge crossing before barring him. “Barring me from traveling for the first time goes in line with Israeli restrictions against the Palestinians after Palestine has been accepted as a full member of the UNESCO, and after the historic speech Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas delivered before the UN,” Khadir said. Khadir was scheduled to attend a regional UNESCO meeting in Jordan, he told Ma'an. In a punitive measure, Israel began withholding Palestinian Authority tax revenues on Nov. 1, a day after the UN cultural agency UNESCO voted to admit Palestine as part of the PLO's drive for UN statehood recognition. Israel released the funds last Wednesday after international condemnation.