‘Will not pass’: Palestinian leader Abbas rejects Trump’s plan
Abbas said Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has pledged that the Middle East plan unveiled by US President Donald Trump will “not pass” as it aims to end the Palestinian cause.
“After the nonsense that we heard today, we say a thousand no’s to the ‘Deal of The Century’,” Abbas said on Tuesday at a news conference in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
He said the Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state with its capital in East Jerusalem.
“We will not kneel and we will not surrender,” Abbas said, adding that the Palestinians would resist the plan through “peaceful, popular means”.
The plan would create a Palestinian state in parts of the occupied West Bank, but would allow Israel to annexe nearly all of its settlements in occupied territory.
The proposed plan would allow the Palestinians to establish a capital on the outskirts of East Jerusalem but would leave most of the city under Israeli control.
“We are certain that our Palestinian people will not let these conspiracies pass. So, all options are open. The [Israeli] occupation and the US administration will bear the responsibility for what they did,” senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said as he participated in one of several protests that broke out across the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Protesters burned tyres and photos of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Abbas held an emergency meeting with other Palestinian factions, including Hamas, to discuss a unified response to the plan.
Abbas rejected the deal before it was announced saying the US was hopelessly biased towards Israel.