My soul hath full long had her dwelling with him that hateth peace. (Psalms 120:6)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was handed official letters of resignation by chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and a second negotiator, Mohammed Ishtayeh on Thursday in response to Israel’s announcement that they would demolish 20 Arab homes in east Jerusalem, according to The Times of Israel. “Knowledgeable sources” told Ma’an news agency that the resignation letters were placed on Abbas’s table, and were pending his decision.
Israel had announced earlier this week that it had approved the construction of 5,000 new housing units in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
The resignations were tendered just three days before US Secretary of State John Kerry was set to return to the region to discuss final-status issues with the two sides.
On Thursday evening, the PLO’s Executive Committee threatened to take “a number of steps” over the coming days to confront “the settlement onslaught” and prevent the political process from “becoming defunct and incapable of realizing its purpose,” official news agency WAFA reported.
It was not immediately clear what house demolitions the negotiators were referring to. Early Tuesday morning, Jerusalem municipality bulldozers destroyed a residential building in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of east Jerusalem that housed nine members of the Shweiki family, Maariv reported. On Wednesday, the three-story home of Ayman Qarash was demolished in the same neighborhood.
Earlier this week, Palestinian negotiators reportedly stiffened their positions on land swaps with Israel and on the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
On Tuesday Israel released 26 Palestinian prisoners, all convicted of murder, in a unilateral faith-building measure.
