AMMAN: Jordan’s King Abdallah and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday decried Israel’s decisions to expel four Hamas lawmakers from Jerusalem and demolish 22 Palestinian houses in a Jerusalem suburb, according to a royal court statement.
Abbas met with Abdallah to review the outcome of their US trips and considered the latest Israeli steps ”a violation of international law that could derail efforts under way to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of the two-state vision”.
Earlier in June, Israel announced that four Hamas-affiliated legislators were stripped of their residency rights and were given a grace period of one month to leave East Jerusalem which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war.
The Jerusalem Municipality earlier this week decided to demolish 22 Palestinian houses in the neighbourhood of Silwan to set up a biblical park.
”We categorically reject all these measures taken by the Israeli government and consider them a stumbling bloc that prevents the achievement of any progress in the political process,” Abbas told reporters after the meeting.
"Israel should stop taking such steps and the United States should ask Israel to halt such measures,” he added.
The two Arab leaders also urged the world community to take ”immediate and effective steps to ensure a lift of the illegal and inhuman blockade” imposed on the Gaza Strip.
”We are in agreement that Israel should lift its siege, reopen all crossings to the territory and allow the entry of all goods needed by the Palestinian people,” Abbas said.
