PA sets up body for suspension of deals with Israel

The Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said on Tuesday that a new body has been formed to deal with the suspension of deals signed with Israel, Quds Press has reported.

Speaking at the annual conference of the International Meeting of the Communist and Workers’ Parties held in Ramallah, Shtayyeh said that the PA leadership took this decision due to Israel’s violation of all deals signed with the PLO.

On Thursday, Mahmoud Abbas, the PA, Fatah and PLO President, announced that he was suspending all deals signed with the Israeli occupation. This was in response to Israel’s demolition of more than 100 Palestinian-owned apartments in Wadi Al-Hummus in Jerusalem’s Sur Baher neighbourhood.

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At the end of October last year, the Palestinian Central Council decided to stop all of the PLO’s obligations related to the deals signed with the Israelis. The Council also decided to suspend the PLO’s recognition of the state of Israel until it gave reciprocal recognition to a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The Palestinian Central Council is the highest legislative body of the PLO, which includes all the Palestinian factions except Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Hamas won the most votes in the last Palestinian elections held in 2006.