The US downgrade of its diplomatic mission to the Palestinians takes effect on Monday as it merges its Jerusalem consulate with the embassy to Israel, the State Department said.

"On March 4, 2019, US consulate general Jerusalem will merge into US embassy Jerusalem to form a single diplomatic mission," it said in a statement.

The United States has denied accusations it is pressuring banks to stop dealing with the Palestinian government, whose relations with Washington have been plummeting.

The traditional brightly embroidered dress of Palestinian women known as the "thobe" was not the type of garment one would expect to become a pop political symbol.

Now it's gaining prominence as a softer expression of Palestinian nationalism, competing even with the classic keffiyeh — the headscarf donned by young stone-throwing Palestinian men protesting Israel's occupation.

The United Nations' envoy to the Mideast said Tuesday that peacekeepers in Lebanon have not been given access to tunnels stretching into Israel, which U.N. officials say violate a case-fire resolution that ended a devastating war between Israel and Hizbullah in 2006.

Nikolay Mladenov told the Security Council that the U.N. peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL has confirmed that two tunnels crossed the U.N.-drawn Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel, but "has not been granted access to the confirmed entry points of a tunnel near Kfar Kila on the Lebanese side."

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are no longer getting food aid or basic health services from America, U.S.-funded infrastructure projects have been halted, and an innovative peace-building program in Jerusalem is scaling back its activities.

The Trump administration's decision last year to cut more than $200 million in development aid to the Palestinians is forcing NGOs to slash programs and lay off staff as the effects ripple through a community that has spent more than two decades promoting peace in the Middle East.

Thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank joined a strike on Tuesday against their government's proposed new social security law, fearing the fund will be mismanaged.

Brazil's president-elect Jair Bolsonaro has told an Israeli newspaper he intends to defy the Palestinians and most of the world by moving his country's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Israeli border police removed caravans on Thursday from near a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank, which they have orders to demolish despite international criticism, officials said.

A Palestinian was killed as youths clashed with Israeli soldiers on the Gaza border on Friday in a new protest against US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the health ministry said.

The United States on Monday vetoed a draft U.N. resolution rejecting President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, after all 14 other Security Council members backed the measure.