Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Thursday that the PA would stop implementing its agreements with Israel and announced the formation of a committee to study how to implement the decision.
In a fiery speech during a meeting of top Palestinian officials at the PA presidential headquarters in Ramallah, Abbas said the move came “in the face of the occupation authority’s insistence on negating all of the signed agreements.”
Abbas said the PA will “halt work related to the agreements signed with the Israeli side and begin establishing mechanisms, starting tomorrow with the formation of a committee to implement that.”
He did not give details on which agreements specifically would be halted.
The two governments work together on matters ranging from water to security, and withdrawing from agreements could impact security in the West Bank.
Abbas has threatened on multiple occasions in the past to nullify accords with Israel and it was not immediately clear whether his statements Thursday indicated a significant shift in policy.
The PA leader lambasted Israel’s demolition this week of homes in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sur Baher on the outskirts of East Jerusalem, calling it “a violation of international legitimacy and agreements signed between us and them, an issue that can only be identified as ethnic cleansing and a crime against humanity.”
He said Israel “has decided to negate all of its obligations according to the signed agreements with it” and continues “to kill and arrest Palestinian citizens, demolish their homes, confiscate their land, close the roads with hundreds of checkpoints, build walls undermining the contiguity of the Palestinian territories and impose a racist separation policy — apartheid.”
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