Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank on Sunday (August 29). This is the first official since Prime Minister Naftali Bennet took office in June. Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Officials said on Monday that Gantz went to the West Bank city of Ramallah to have security and economic discussions with the 85-year-old Palestinian leader.
They came a few hours after Israeli Prime Minister Bennett returned from Washington and met with US President Joe Biden at the White House.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense said in a statement: “The Minister of Defense Benny Gantz met with the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas (Sunday) evening to discuss security policy, civil and economic issues. .”
Gantz, leader of the centrist party in the Israeli government coalition, told Abbas, “Israel seeks to take measures to strengthen the Palestinian Authority’s economy. They also discussed shaping the security and economic situation in the West Bank and Gaza,” it added.
“They agreed to continue to communicate further.”
The meeting included the head of the Israeli military department in charge of civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, Gassan Arian, the senior Palestinian Authority official Hussein Sheikh, and the head of the Palestinian intelligence service Majid Faraj.
Sheikh confirmed the meeting on Twitter. Gantz’s office said that after the large-scale meeting, the Defense Minister and Abbas held a “one-on-one meeting.”
In recent years, relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, headquartered in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, have deteriorated sharply.
The former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in power from 2009 to 2021, was ridiculed by the Palestinians.
He did not make substantial efforts to resolve the decades-long conflict, while monitoring the steady expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law.
Bennett is a hardline nationalist who opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state. He previously led a powerful settler lobby.
His office has made it clear that the coalition of different ideologies in Israel, including left-wingers and hawks like the prime minister, has no plan to launch a new round of peace talks.
However, due to fear of a new conflict with Hamas Islamists who control Gaza, senior Israeli officials expressed their hope to strengthen the Palestinian Authority, which is a Palestinian territory separated from the West Bank blocked by Israel.
In May, Israeli and Palestinian militants clashed in the Gaza Strip for 11 days. This was the most serious hostilities in the region since 2014. Although Egypt facilitated a ceasefire, the unrest continued.
Abbas’s Palestinian Authority has also received increasing criticism from around the world for allegedly suppressing key rights after a prominent activist died in Palestinian custody.
Last week, the United Nations and the European Union expressed shock at a series of arrests against major critics of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.
