The President of the Palestinian Authority urged the international community on Sunday to protect his people of the actions of the Israeli government, which he says has “crossed all red lines”. Mahmoud Abbas was speaking at a summit for Jerusalem held at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo to take stock of the outbreak of violence in the West Bank.
According to the UN, 2022 was the deadliest year in the occupied West Bank since 2005. Agence France-Presse (AFP) recorded 235 deaths, of which nearly 90% were Palestinians. In 2023, forty-three Palestinians, nine Israeli civilians and one Ukrainian woman were killed, according to official data.
In addition to Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi – whose country is a historical mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – and King Abdallah II of Jordan took the floor. “The current situation calls for an intensification of our efforts”pleaded the latter, adding that the American president, Joe Biden, had recently expressed his “strong support for a two-state solution”.
“Biden does nothing”
“Mr. Biden says [la] support, but it does nothing at all”, lamented Mr. Abbas. The Palestinians will go “in a few days before the UN Security Council” and intend to seize the International Criminal Court (ICC) because they now have “every day more than one martyr”he continued.
“The position of the UN is clear: it refuses unilateral decisions”said Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the organization, who spoke remotely about “Illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem”.
The Arab League, which has been losing momentum for years, is increasingly divided on the question of normalization with Israel, which Mahmoud Abbas considers to be a questioning of the principles of the organization. Morocco, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recognized Israel’s existence in 2020, and Sudan repeated in February that it intended to do so. Egypt and Jordan took the plunge several decades ago.