Ramallah renames Hungary street over Gaza war UN vote

Ramallah has decided to remove Hungary's name from a street in the city over the European country's vote on the Gaza war at the UN.

Hungary was one of 14 countries that last month that voted against a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for an "immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities". The resolution was adopted with 120 votes in favour and 45 abstentions.

Ramallah's decision was announced by the municipal council on Saturday, The New Arab's Arabic sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported. It has been relayed to the Hungarian representation in Palestine.

"We must review everyone who does not stand with the rights of our people and their just cause for liberation from occupation," Ramallah mayor Issa Kassis said in a statement.

The decision to rename the street "comes in light of the catastrophic conditions and repeated massacres against the Palestinian people", he said.

Kassis added that thousands of people have been killed, wounded and "afflicted", using a word linguistically related to the term "Nakba".

The Nakba, Catastrophe in Arabic, refers to the ethnic cleansing of some 750,000 Palestinians alongside the 1948 creation of the Israeli state.

Many fear history will repeat itself in Gaza, where almost 1.7 million people are estimated to have been displaced.

Ramallah, the centre of the Palestinian Authority's limited power, is located in the occupied West Bank.

Since 7 October, when the Gaza war began, more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank have suffered displacement amid Israeli settler violence and access restrictions, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Friday.

Kassis said messages have been sent to the heads of local authorities emphasising the need for them to pressure their governments to end the war on Gaza.

The decision to remove Hungary's name from a street in Ramallah came after a 'State of Palestine' street was inaugurated in Colombia's capital Bogotá in September.

The street naming ceremony began with both countries' national anthems and saw Palestinian Ambassador Raouf Al-Maliki praise the city council.

Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki cut the ribbon with Councillor Ana Teresa Bernal, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported at the time.

"Bogotá City Council member Ana Teresa Bernal expressed her pride in naming one of the city's most prominent streets after the State of Palestine, a move that she said testifies to the Colombian people's support and solidarity with the Palestinian people and their righteous quest for an independent state," Wafa said.