Ramallah, Jan 1 (DPA) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel Thursday of trying to sabotage Palestinian achievements – mainly the enforcement of law and order, stability and security in the West Bank – through its military incursions and killing of Palestinians.
In an address in Ramallah to mark the 45th anniversary of the first attack by his Fatah organisation against Israel, on Jan 3, 1965, Abbas said the Palestinian people will not fall into the Israel trap and resort to violence to retaliate against these Israeli actions.
He said, however, that the Palestinians will continue to fight for their freedom through what he described as “legitimate resistance” guaranteed by international law.
“As we make achievements,” he said, “the Israeli government and the more extreme elements escalate their measures against us.”
The Israeli killing of six Palestinians over the weekend in Gaza and the West Bank city of Nablus was “a despicable and atrocious act”, he said.
Israel “seeks through these provocative and ongoing acts to drag us to a violent reaction to relieve itself from international isolation by making us appear as the aggressor”, said Abbas, urging the Palestinians not to do anything “uncalculated”.
Israel said the three killed in the West Bank were behind the fatal shooting Dec 24 of an Israeli settler in the northern West bank, and the three in the Gaza Strip had been killed while approaching the border fence with a quantity of arms and explosive devices.
Abbas said the international community has “an unprecedented understanding of our position”, stressing that no country, not even the US, backed Israel’s settlement policy in the Palestinian territories.
He urged the Israelis to accept the Palestinian hand stretched for peace saying “peace between us should be based on the principle of your withdrawal from our land occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem”.
He said “peace alongside your state is what will bring security, stability and coexistence”.
Recalling the first anniversary of a 21-day Israeli war on Gaza which left over 1,400 Palestinians dead, thousands wounded and heavy damage to homes and infrastructure, Abbas said the Palestinian Authority will follow up on recommendations by Richard Goldstone on that war “until we bring every war criminal before the International Court of Justice”.
South African justice Goldstone accused Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since June 2007, of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, but in different proportions, in a report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council.
