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Abbas: PA Ready for Negotiations Once Annexation Plan Halted

Boris Johnson, then British Foreign Secretary, with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in 2017 (Getty)
Boris Johnson, then British Foreign Secretary, with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in 2017 (Getty)
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Abbas: PA Ready for Negotiations Once Annexation Plan Halted

Boris Johnson, then British Foreign Secretary, with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in 2017 (Getty)
Boris Johnson, then British Foreign Secretary, with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in 2017 (Getty)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he is ready to resume stalled peace talks with Israel once it halts the annexation of large parts of the occupied West Bank.

His remarks were made on Wednesday in a telephone call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in which he affirmed that resumed negotiations will be based on international resolutions and through the mediation of the International Quartet.

Abbas also hailed Britain’s position that supports achieving peace based on international legitimacy and rejects the annexation plan.

Johnson affirmed the UK’s commitment to the two-state solution and the implementation of UN resolutions, as well as his rejection of any measures taken by Israel to annex Palestinian lands.

He stressed the importance of reviving the peace process, adding that his country will continue to support peace.

Abbas’s announcement comes in light of efforts exerted by several countries to push the negotiations as an alternative to a possible confrontation once Israel annexes parts of the West Bank.

According to a letter sent to the international peacemaking Quartet (European Union, United Nations, Russia and the United States) earlier this month, Palestinians are “ready to resume direct bilateral negotiations where they stopped” in 2014.

“We are ready to have our state with a limited number of weapons and a powerful police force to uphold law and order,” it said, adding that it would accept an international force such as NATO, mandated by the UN, to monitor compliance with any eventual peace treaty.

The text also proposed “minor border changes that will have been mutually agreed, based on the borders of June 4, 1967”, when Israeli forces occupied the West Bank.
Israel has not yet implemented the annexation plan that was scheduled for early July due to internal disputes over the plan, and with the United States as well, and a growing large international opposition.

According to the European Union Representative to Palestine Sven Kuhn von Burgsdorff, the EU won’t recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the territories occupied since 1967.

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Lebanon Military Says One Soldier Killed, 18 Hurt in Israeli Strike on Army Center

Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
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Lebanon Military Says One Soldier Killed, 18 Hurt in Israeli Strike on Army Center

Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb

An Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center on Sunday killed one soldier and wounded 18 others, the Lebanese military said.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops, even as the military has largely kept to the sidelines in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has said previous strikes on Lebanese troops were accidental and that they are not a target of its campaign against Hezbollah.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.

The strike occurred in southwestern Lebanon on the coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.

Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes since the rocket fire began, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war, as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah's top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.

Israeli airstrikes early Saturday pounded central Beirut, killing at least 20 people and wounding 66, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. Hezbollah has continued to fire regular barrages into Israel, forcing people to race for shelters and occasionally killing or wounding them.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel's ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country's north.

Hezbollah fired barrages of rockets into northern and central Israel on Sunday, some of which were intercepted.

Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said it was treating two people in the central city of Petah Tikva, a 23-year-old man who was lightly wounded by a blast and a 70-year-old woman suffering from smoke inhalation from a car that caught fire. The first responders said they also treated two women in their 50s who were wounded in northern Israel.

It was unclear whether the injuries and damage were caused by the rockets or interceptors.

The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.

The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of UN peacekeepers.