WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has given the Zionist regime one year to withdraw from occupied territory and threatened to withdraw ‘recognition’ of the Zionist regime if it failed to do so.
In a virtual address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday, Abbas said he would no longer recognize the Zionist regime based on pre-1967 borders – a cornerstone of three decades of failed ‘peace’ efforts – if it refused to withdraw from the Palestinian territories.
“We must state that Israel, the occupying power, has one year to withdraw from the Palestinian territory it occupied in 1967, including East Al-Quds,” Abbas said.
“If this is not achieved, why maintain recognition of Israel based on the 1967 borders?”
The Palestinian leader also called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to “convene an international peace conference” and expressed his willingness “to work throughout the year” on solving the issue between the Zionist regime and Palestine “in accordance with United Nations resolutions”.
“Our people will not surrender to the occupation and its illegal policies and practices. They will pursue their just struggle to fulfill their right to self-determination.”
Abbas underlined that the Palestinians “will go to the International Court of Justice as the supreme international judicial body on the issue of the legality of the occupation of the land of the Palestinian state.”
Tensions have been running high in the occupied territories for months over the Zionist regime’s settlement activities and its planned eviction of Palestinian families from their ancestral homes. Many Palestinians have been killed and scores wounded in the occupying regime’s crackdown on protests so far this year.
More than 600,000 Zionist live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Al-Quds. All Zionist settlements are illegal under international law as they are built on occupied land. The United Nations Security Council has condemned the Zionist regime’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.