Palestine rejects Israeli annexation plan: Abbas
Palestinian president stressed that the Palestinians reject the US Middle East ‘peace plan,’ adding that it violated all international resolutions
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected Israel’s plan to annex parts of the West Bank on the basis of US President Donald Trump’s Middle East “peace plan.”
Abbas made the remarks in a telephone conversation with Simoneta Sommaruga, President of the Swiss Confederation, reports Xinhua news agency.
Abbas stressed that the Palestinians reject the US Middle East “peace plan,” adding that it violated all international resolutions.
Sommaruga said that Switzerland opposes any unilateral actions or any changes that violate international law and the international legitimacy, and called for Israel and the Palestinians for a dialogue.
She told Abbas that her country will continue providing support to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, mainly in the field of health to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
In another development, during an online meeting with 40 British lawmakers, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye accused
Israel of planning to dissolve the Palestinian Authority (PA), adding that they will not let Israel do so “because the PA was the result of the Palestinian struggle.”
“The Israeli annexation plan threatens the existence of the Palestinian people and their just cause and also threatens security and stability in the region,” said Ishtaye.
The developments came a day ater Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he was willing to negotiate with the Palestinians, asking them to “embrace” Trump’s plan and “be prepared to negotiate a historic compromise that could bring peace to Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
Netanyahu has set July 1 as the date for his plan to annex the Jordan Valley, which makes up some 30 per cent of the West Bank, a territory seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East war.
The Palestinians, who claim all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, have rejected the idea.
The last Israeli-palestinian peace talks broke down in 2014, mainly because of their deep divisions on the issues of the Jewish setlements and Jerusalem.
The resumption of peace talks has hit a roadblock since Trump declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in late 2017 and moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the disputed holy city in mid-2018.
Israel considers the entire Jerusalem as its eternal capital, a fact that is rejected by the Palestinians, who insist that East Jerusalem be the capital of their future independent state.
The Palestinians are prepared to renew longstalled peace talks with Israel and to agree to “minor” territorial concessions, according to a counter-proposal to a contentious US plan.
A Palestinian Authority text sent to the international peacemaking Quartet, says the Palestinians are “ready to resume direct bilateral negotiations where they stopped,” in 2014.
Shtayyeh said on June 9 that the PA had drated a response to the US proposal but did not previously mention direct talks with the Israelis.
Israel’s coalition government has set July 1 as the date from which it could initiate action on US President Donald Trump’s Middle East controversial peace proposals.
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz said on Monday however that with new coronavirus infections still on the rise, any annexation of West Bank territory must wait.
“Anything unrelated to the batle against the coronavirus will wait until ater the virus,” he said. His office later clarified that he was referring specifically to the annexation plan.
The Trump proposal paves the way for Israel to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, including setlementsconsideredillegalunderinternationallaw.
“If Israel declares the annexation of any part of the Palestinian territory, that will necessarily mean the annulation of all signed agreements,” the PA wrote in a four-page leter to the Quartet of the United Nations, United States, Russia and the European Union.
“No one has as much interest as the Palestinians in reaching a peace agreement and no one has as much to lose as the Palestinians in the absence of peace,” it said.