Israel opposition head meets Abbas, warns of '3rd intifada'

I24 NEWS – Israeli opposition chief Isaac Herzog called on Tuesday for a resumption of peace negotiations to prevent a new uprising, after talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank.

“We agreed on the fact that on the ground in recent weeks and days there is a deterioration, there is an escalation in terror activities,” he told reporters at the Ramallah headquarters of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.

“I told the president that fighting terror and preventing terror activities is of utmost priority to us,” said Herzog.

“We first and foremost must prevent a third intifada and we have agreed that in order to prevent a third intifada we must combat terror on one hand, aggressively, and on the other hand we must move towards a diplomatic process, move to negotiate, move to talk with each other.”

According to Herzog, a peace agreement can be reached within the next two years if there is enough good will by both sides.

“I will continue to try to convince the Israeli public, which is losing its faith, that the process is necessary and should be promoted quickly,” he said to Abbas, adding that “we should not fear. We must dare and ensure a better future for our nations.

Tensions have been rising, with three young Palestinians shot dead in the space of eight days following stabbing stabbing attempts on Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.

Adding to the volatility, a Palestinian in Israeli detention, Mohammed Allan, pledged Tuesday to resume his already two-month-long hunger strike, at the risk of death, unless the Jewish state resolves his case within 24 hours.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been frozen since a failed US diplomatic push in April 2014.

A first intifada raged in the Palestinian territories from 1987 until the 1991 Madrid peace conference, while a second anti-Israeli uprising broke out in 2000 and lasted five years.

PA accuses Hamas of ‘Gaza split’ talks with Israel

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday accused Hamas of holding secret talks with Israel that would endorse the separation of Palestinian territories.

Arab and Turkish media have carried reports, picked up by Israeli media, claiming Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip were holding talks.

The talks were reportedly aimed at reaching an eight- or 10-year truce, with Israel removing its blockade on the coastal Palestinian territory.

Israel on Monday denied it was engaged in “any meetings with Hamas, neither directly, nor via other countries or intermediaries”.

But the Authority weighed in on Tuesday, insisting there were talks that would cause Palestinian disunity.

“There have been negotiations and they are on the verge of reaching an agreement about a truce of eight to 10 years,” Palestinian foreign minister Riad al-Malki said.

The agreement would see Israel lift its blockade of Gaza and “allow maritime passage” to nearby Cyprus, Malki told France 24 television.

“We don’t know if it will happen tomorrow or in a month,” he said, adding that “there are mediators who are doing their utmost to reach this agreement.”

The Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Hamas’s rival, said former British prime minister Tony Blair was acting as a mediator in the talks.

“The Hamas-Blair agreement … paves the way for division and the isolation of the Gaza Strip,” said Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf.

This, he added, would help “Israel to achieve its goal of preventing the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders” and including Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, he told Palestinian radio on Monday night.

Since 2007, Gaza and the occupied West Bank have been under the control of the rival administrations of Hamas and Fatah, respectively.

In Gaza, Hamas number two Ismail Haniya once again rejected any possibility of a Palestinian state in Gaza alone.

Hamas sources recently admitted an “exchange of ideas” via third parties, but officials have told AFP on condition of anonymity that the topics discussed were “solely humanitarian, not political”.