Palestinian president meets Israeli protection minister in uncommon journey
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Tuesday throughout a uncommon journey to Israel.
It was the most recent in a sequence of conferences between prime Israeli officers and the Palestinian chief.
In late August, the protection minister visited the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters within the West Bank for talks with Abbas — the primary official assembly at such a degree in a number of years.
According to a senior Palestinian official, Tuesday’s assembly marked the primary time Abbas met with an Israeli official in Israel since 2010.
The late-night talks befell at Gantz’s dwelling in central Israel, a senior Palestinian official stated.
What did they talk about?
“The two men discussed security and civil matters,” the Israeli Defense Ministry stated in an announcement.
Gantz advised Abbas that he supposed to “continue to promote actions to strengthen confidence in the economic and civilian fields, as agreed during their last meeting,” it added.
Hussein al-Sheikh, the Palestinian civil affairs minister and a key aide to Abbas, stated the assembly “dealt with the importance of creating a political horizon” that results in a political answer in accordance with worldwide legitimacy resolutions.
He stated the pair mentioned “the tense field conditions due to the practices of settlers,” including that the assembly handled “many security, economic and humanitarian issues.”
No ongoing peace course of
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated after the assembly in August that there weren’t any ongoing peace talks with the Palestinians, “and there won’t be one.”
While the right-wing chief opposes Palestinian statehood, he has stated he desires to cut back friction with the Palestinian Authority and enhance dwelling circumstances within the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israeli-Palestinian relations have considerably deteriorated lately.
Several cases of violence have been reported within the West Bank in latest weeks, together with a sequence of Palestinian assaults on Israelis in addition to a surge in violence by Israeli settlers towards Palestinian civilians.
Peace talks had been suspended in 2014, and Jewish settlements within the occupied West Bank have since expanded.
The Palestinian Authority seeks an unbiased state that features all the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.