© Photo by AFPPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (seated) chairs a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee at the Palestinian Authority headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, September 15, 2018
"Killing, expanding settlement[s], destruction, and the uprooting of the Palestinian population will not bring peace or security," President Abbas said in a meeting with former Israeli left-wing lawmakers on Sunday, Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
"This (Israeli) government's policies and the biased US decisions contradict the international resolutions and are harming the chances of making just peace based on the two-state solution along 1967 borders," the president said.Palestinian officials have long sought to establish an independent Palestinian state within the borders that existed before the 1967 war between Israel and three other Arab states.
In that war - also known as the Six-Day War, the Israeli regime took over Arab and Palestinian land that it continues to occupy to this day. It has been expanding further into Palestinian land by building settlements for Israelis deeper and deeper into those territories, in what is effectively killing the chances of Palestinian statehood.
The Tel Aviv regime, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who hails from the hard-line Likud Party, has taken a radical shift to the far right, with cabinet members openly advocating the annexation of occupied Palestinian territories.
More than 230 illegal settlements have been constructed since 1967. In September 2016, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution - with a notable abstention vote by the then-administration of US president Barack Obama - that denounced Israeli settlements as a "flagrant violation of international law."
The current administration of President Donald Trump, which took over shortly afterwards, has denounced that resolution - as has Israel - and has taken a decisive line in favor of the Israeli regime and against Palestinians.
In May, the US moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds, in a largely solitary but consequential move that further complicated Palestinian aspirations for statehood.
Last week, the Trump White House also announced the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington. Palestinian officials said on Sunday that Washington had also revoked the visas of Palestinian envoy Husam Zomlot and his family.
Comment: The Palestinian Liberation Organization has accused US of a new level of pressure and of being 'spiteful' after the family of its envoy had their visas annulled following the closure of the PLO office.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO's executive committee, said on Sunday that the US "has taken its attempts to pressure and blackmail the Palestinians to a new level." She lambasted Washington's decision to banish Ambassador Husam Zomlot's wife and their two children from the country.
"As if the announcement that the US would close our office in Washington DC was not enough, this vindictive action by the Trump administration is spiteful," she said, arguing that the move "goes against diplomatic norms."
"Children, spouses and family have nothing to do with political rows," she added.
Said, 7, and Alma, 5, had to be pulled from their school in Washington DC last week and left the US for Palestine.
Washington's move to kick the ambassador's entire family out of the US comes after it gave the PLO's staff until October 13 to pack up and vacate its leased office in Washington DC. The US State Department said that the decision, slammed by the PLO as"collective punishment," was prompted by the Palestinian authorities' appeal to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch an investigation into Israeli officials' alleged "crimes against humanity." These alleged crimes include forcible removals, demolition of Palestinian homes, and unlawful killings of protesters.
Back in August, the Trump administration announced that it was canceling $300 million in planned funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which provides for the welfare of over five million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.
© AFPIn this file photo, taken on November 21, 2017, a national Palestinian flag is seen at the Palestine Liberation Organization Office in Washington, DC. The US closed that office last week
Recently, Palestinians protested en masse in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip to press for the right of return of those Palestinians who have been uprooted in Israeli wars and other acts of aggression since 1948. More than 180 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces ever since those protests began in the Gaza Strip on March 30. Nearly 20,000 Palestinians have also sustained injuries.
The regime also routinely blocks access to the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem al-Quds, angering Palestinian Muslims who wish to enter the site for worship.
In the Sunday meeting with Abbas, the Israeli delegation voiced appreciation for his commitment to peace, according to WAFA.
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