West Bank poised for ‘explosion’
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Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Israeli policies threaten to trigger an “explosion” in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said Thursday in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Palestinian state media.
The Palestinian leader told Putin that Israeli settlements, land confiscation, house demolitions and “settler terrorism” were among the factors of anger in the West Bank, state news agency Wafa said.
“The continuation of these Israeli measures will lead to an explosion of the situation,” Wafa told Putin.
Russia is a member of the Quartet of International Mediators for the Middle East, along with the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.
Abbas spoke to Putin two days after meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz at his home. It was Abbas’s first official visit to Israel since 2010. Months earlier, Gantz had visited Abbas in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority.
Following their meeting this week, the Israeli Defense Ministry announced “confidence-building measures” to ease the economic situation in the Palestinian Authority and reduce tensions in the West Bank, Palestinian territory that Israel has occupied since 1967.
The United States praised the economic measures, but Abbas told Putin they were not enough, according to Wafa.
“Economic and security measures are not a substitute for the political path,” Abbas said, adding that the Palestinian leadership will have to take “key decisions” at the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) scheduled for the coming months. .
Abbas’s conversation with Putin was accompanied by rising tensions in the West Bank.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded 410 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the first 10 months of 2021, compared to 358 for the whole of 2020.
According to the IDF’s annual report, 100 attacks were carried out in 2021 against Israelis in the occupied West Bank, up from 60 a year earlier.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett took office in June and is a former settler leader who opposes a Palestinian state. Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen for years.
Abbas has not been re-elected since he was first elected in January 2005. A recent opinion poll released by the independent Ramallah-based think tank, the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Surveys , revealed that 74% of Palestinians want Abbas to resign.
© 2021 AFP