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Palestinian Leadership: Arab Initiative Best Route to Peace With Israel

Member of Fatah’s Central Committee Azzam Al-Ahmad | Mohammed Talatene/Apaimages
Member of Fatah’s Central Committee Azzam Al-Ahmad | Mohammed Talatene/Apaimages
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Palestinian Leadership: Arab Initiative Best Route to Peace With Israel

Member of Fatah’s Central Committee Azzam Al-Ahmad | Mohammed Talatene/Apaimages
Member of Fatah’s Central Committee Azzam Al-Ahmad | Mohammed Talatene/Apaimages

Azzam el-Ahmad, a member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah central committee, welcomed on Thursday the Saudi position on peace with Israel on the basis of the longstanding Arab Peace Initiative.

“The Saudi position is important because it adheres to Arab consensus, the Arab Peace Initiative, and plays a central role in the region,” Ahmad said.

On Wednesday, Prince Faisal bin Farhan said the Kingdom remains committed to peace with Israel on the basis of the longstanding Arab Peace Initiative, in the first official comment since the United Arab Emirates agreed to normalize relations with Israel.

"The Kingdom considers any Israeli unilateral measures to annex Palestinian land as undermining the two-state solution," the Saudi Minister said in an event in Berlin on Wednesday, in comments reported on Saudi's foreign affairs ministry Twitter page.

Ahmad said the Saudi position confirms that the Kingdom would not normalize its relationship with Israel because it is a central state at the Arab, regional, and international levels.

Israel and the UAE reached a historic deal last week that will establish diplomatic ties, becoming the third Arab country to recognize Israel after Jordan and Egypt.

For his part, Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said that “abiding by the Arab Peace Initiative (API) is the real test for Arab states’ positions on Jerusalem and a test for the seriousness of the Arab joint action.”

He added that the Palestinian people’s firm position against the US-touted Mideast plan, dubbed deal of the century, as well as against Israel’s illegal annexation move and Arab-Israeli normalization that comes for free has thwarted all colonial schemes against Palestine.

Abu Rudeineh pointed out that the Palestinian people’s unified stance in support of the recent Palestinian leadership led by President Mahmoud Abbas is “the optimal response to all conspiracies and steps that breach the Arab consensus” as well as to Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks on eliminating Palestinian veto on Arab-Israeli peace.

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Arab World

Gaza and a Ceasefire Slip Out of Focus as Lebanon Conflict Rages

Mourners carry the body of Sameh al-Asali, 38, a Palestinian worker from Gaza who had been stranded in the territory since the war broke out and was killed by a rocket during Tuesday's night's Iranian strike toward Israel, during his funeral in the West Bank city of Jericho, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Mourners carry the body of Sameh al-Asali, 38, a Palestinian worker from Gaza who had been stranded in the territory since the war broke out and was killed by a rocket during Tuesday's night's Iranian strike toward Israel, during his funeral in the West Bank city of Jericho, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
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Gaza and a Ceasefire Slip Out of Focus as Lebanon Conflict Rages

Mourners carry the body of Sameh al-Asali, 38, a Palestinian worker from Gaza who had been stranded in the territory since the war broke out and was killed by a rocket during Tuesday's night's Iranian strike toward Israel, during his funeral in the West Bank city of Jericho, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Mourners carry the body of Sameh al-Asali, 38, a Palestinian worker from Gaza who had been stranded in the territory since the war broke out and was killed by a rocket during Tuesday's night's Iranian strike toward Israel, during his funeral in the West Bank city of Jericho, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Palestinians fear the crisis in Lebanon is diverting the world's attention from Gaza, where Israeli strikes killed dozens more people this week, and diminishing already dim prospects for a ceasefire a year into a war that has shattered the enclave.
An escalation in the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah over the past two weeks has led to clashes between Israeli and Hezbollah forces inside Lebanon and fueled fears of a wider regional war.
Both Israel and its Hamas foes in Gaza say the Lebanon conflict could help end the Gaza conflict, but some analysts, officials from mediating countries, and Gazans, are skeptical.
"The focus is on Lebanon, which means the war in Gaza isn't ending anytime soon," Hussam Ali, a 45-year-old Gaza City resident who said his family had been displaced seven times since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7 last year, told Reuters via a chat app.
When Iran launched ballistic missiles at Israel late on Tuesday, provoking an Israeli promise of a "painful" response, some Gazans welcomed the salvo visible in the skies overhead as a sign Tehran was fighting for their cause.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said prospects for a Gaza ceasefire deal, which would see the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza and Palestinians jailed by Israel, were distant before the escalation in Lebanon. A regional conflagration could lead to pressure on Israel to strike a deal in Gaza, he said.
But with attention swinging to Lebanon, the war in Gaza risked being prolonged, said Ashraf Abouelhoul, managing editor of state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram in Egypt, which has helped to mediate months of ceasefire negotiations.
"The most dangerous thing isn't that the media attention is going somewhere else, it is the fact that no one in the world is now talking about a deal or a ceasefire, and that frees Israel's hand to continue its military offensive and plans in Gaza," he said.
STALLED TALKS
Inside Gaza there has been no sign of a let-up in Israel's offensive against Hamas. On Thursday, local medics reported at least 99 Palestinian deaths in the past 24 hours.
Egypt, which has been alarmed by the Israeli offensive on the other side of its border with Gaza and has lost billions of dollars in Suez Canal revenues during the war, is frustrated that its mediation efforts have failed to secure a truce.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that the US remained focused on securing a ceasefire though Hamas had for weeks "refused to engage".
Hamas officials and Western diplomats said in August that negotiations had stalled due to new Israeli demands to keep troops in Gaza.
An official briefed on the Gaza ceasefire talks told Reuters nothing would happen until after the US presidential election on Nov. 5, "because nobody can effectively pressure (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, which is the key impediment to a Gaza ceasefire deal".
The official said that during UN General Assembly meetings last week Hezbollah wanted a proposal for a 21-day ceasefire with Israel to be linked to a ceasefire deal in Gaza, but Israel rejected this and the plan was dropped. Top Israeli officials publicly dismissed the idea of a quick ceasefire with Hezbollah.
Israel's killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week complicated chances for mediation, two Egyptian security sources said. Egypt's efforts became limited to containing any further escalation, the sources said.
ROCKETS
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel at the start of the Gaza war in support of Hamas, causing the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents whom Israel says need to return home.
In Lebanon, nearly 1,900 people have been killed and more than 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in nearly a year of cross-border fighting, with most of the deaths occurring in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics.
More than a million Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes.
The casualty figures are still a fraction of those in Gaza, where the health ministry says at least 41,788 Palestinians have been killed and 96,794 wounded since Oct. 7 last year.
The Gaza war began after Hamas led a shock incursion into Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
"We feel for the people of Lebanon and we don't want them to go through the devastation and starvation we are enduring," said Ghada, a 50-year-old mother of five living in a tent in the central Gaza city of Deir Al-Balah, where a million people are sheltering.
"I am afraid the world has become less interested in what happens to us here."