Gulf nations write to the US about a minister's remarks against Palestine.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has written to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemning controversial comments from Israel's finance minister in which he denied the existence of a Palestinian people. Smotrich is part of veteran Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government. The GCC ministers also denounced earlier remarks by Smotrich, calling for the Palestinian town of Huwara in the West Bank to be "wiped out". The US State Department criticised a move by Israel's parliament to annul part of a law banning Israelis from living in areas of the West Bank evacuated in 2005, calling it "provocative" and in direct contradiction of promises made to Washington at the time. The GCC, whose foreign ministers met in Riyadh last week, includes the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which normalised relations with Israel under the US-crafted 2020 Abraham Accords, as well as Saudi Arabia, which has not.