At Wolf’s Home: Abbas Visits Zionist War Minister

Date: 29 December 2021 - 21:38

News ID: ۹۸۳۴۵

RAMALLAH (Dispatches) -- Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas made a rare visit to Occupied Palestine on Tuesday for talks with Zionist war minister Benny Gantz that the Israelis said focused on “security and civil matters”.
Israeli media reported that the meeting took place at Gantz’s home in the central town of Rosh HaAyin, marking Abbas’s first formal meeting in Occupied Palestine since 2010.
Gantz told Abbas that he intended to “continue to promote actions to strengthen confidence in the economic and civilian fields, as agreed during their last meeting,” a statement from the occupying regime of Israel’s war ministry said.
“The two men discussed security and civil matters,” it added.
The ministry said Gantz had approved registration as West Bank residents for some 6,000 people who had been living in the territory, occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war, without official status.
Another 3,500 people from Gaza would also receive residency documentation, the ministry said.
According to Haaretz, it was agreed that dozens of so-called VIP passes would be issued for senior Palestinian Authority officials.
The occupying regime of Israel also agreed to give the Palestinian Authority 100 million shekels ($32m) as an advance on the taxes Israel collects on its behalf, Haaretz said.
Gantz’s meeting with Abbas follows a visit to the region by U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
In late August, Gantz visited Abbas’ headquarters in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, the first official meeting at such a level for several years.
But after those talks, Zionist prime minister Naftali Bennett underlined that there was no peace process under way with the Palestinians, “and there won’t be one”.
Hamas said the Palestinian Authority president’s visit went against the “national spirit of our Palestinian people”.
“This behavior by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority deepens the Palestinian political divide,

complicates the Palestinian situation, encourages those in the region who want to normalize relations with the occupier, and weakens the Palestinians’ rejection of normalization,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said.
Qassem was alluding to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Morocco and Sudan, which earlier this year signed U.S.-brokered normalization deals with Israel during the presidency of Donald Trump.
Amid the visit, the Israeli municipality of Al-Quds demolished a Palestinian-owned house in the occupied city, leaving another Palestinian family homeless.
Wafa news agency reported that Zionist police sealed off the vicinity of the building in southern East Al-Quds neighborhood of Jabal al-Mukaber before the municipality bulldozer destroyed it.
During the demolition, residents clashed with the Israeli forces, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters and injured several of them.
The Tel Aviv regime regularly flattens Palestinian homes and structures in Al-Quds under the pretext that they lack building permits.
However, Palestinians and rights groups say the moves are aimed at seizing more Palestinian lands to expand Zionist settlements.
In the Gaza Strip, the Zionist regime launched artillery strikes, injuring three Palestinian farmers in the besieged enclave.
Israeli tanks opened fire at several posts belonging to the Palestinian resistance movements on the eastern and northern borders of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) said.
The Zionist military also opened fire at lands belonging to civilians in the eastern areas of central and southern Gaza Strip, the PIC added. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, three people were injured in the Israeli attacks.
The PIC said the injuries took place as the artillery shells were fired towards Palestinian farmers from the same family in the city of Beit Hanoun. One of the injured was in serious condition.