According to Israeli sources and media, Abbas met with Gantz at his house in the center town of Rosh HaAyin, where he was heading a high-ranking team on his first visit to Israel for an official meeting since 2010, according to Israeli sources and media.
“We addressed the execution of economic and civilian measures, as well as the significance of improving security coordination and avoiding terror and bloodshed — for both Israelis and Palestinians’ well-being,” Gantz said following the meeting on Tuesday evening. Israel’s defense minister declared on Wednesday that it will take “confidence-building measures” with the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The PA was given a $32 million (100 million shekel) advance payment in taxes collected on its behalf by Israel, as well as 600 more licenses permitting Palestinian businesspeople to enter Israel. It also announced the regularisation of 6,000 more Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank, which has been under Israeli control since the Six-Day War of 1967.
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For the first time since 2009, Israel had stated in October that the status of 4,000 Palestinians living in Area C, a huge section of the West Bank under Israeli civilian and military rule, would be regularized. “The conference focused on the significance of establishing a political vision that leads to a political settlement in line with international agreements,” Palestinian Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh said on Wednesday.
The West Bank, excluding annexed east Jerusalem, is home to over 500,000 Jewish settlers who live in colonies that are considered illegal under international law. Hussein al-Sheikh noted that the meetings also discussed “the difficult situation on the ground owing to settlers’ behaviors,” as well as “various security, economic, and humanitarian challenges.”
After Israel’s coalition government led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was formed in June, Gantz had visited the PA’s headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah in August for talks with Abbas, the first official meeting at such a level for several years.
But after those talks, hawkish Bennett, the former head of a settler lobby group who opposes Palestinian statehood, underlined that there was no peace process under way with the Palestinians, “and there won’t be one”. Right-winger Bennett leads a motley coalition of parties ranging from the Jewish nationalist right to the left and centre. Israel’s right-wing opposition Likud party condemned the latest meeting, saying that “concessions dangerous for Israel’s security are only a matter of time”.The party added a dismissive reference to Bennett’s governing coalition, which includes an Israeli Arab party for the first time.
“The Israeli-Palestinian government has put the Palestinians and Abbas back on the agenda… it is dangerous for Israel,” the Likud said. Gantz’s meeting with Abbas follows a recent visit to the region by US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, with the administration of President Joe Biden seeking to reboot relations with the Palestinians that were broken under Donald Trump.
Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, also condemned the visit.It went against the “national spirit of our Palestinian people”, a Hamas statement said. An 11-day conflict in May between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip marked the worst hostilities in the area since 2014, and unrest has persisted despite an Egypt-brokered ceasefire. “This behaviour by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority deepens the Palestinian political divide, complicates the Palestinian situation, encourages those in the region who want to normalise relations with the occupier, and weakens the Palestinians’ rejection of normalisation,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said.
Qassem was alluding to Gulf Arab states Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Morocco and Sudan, which signed US-brokered normalisation deals with Israel during the presidency of Trump.