Measures include providing status approvals on a humanitarian basis for 6,000 Palestinians, and the transfer of tax payments.
By JNS
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas agreed on a series of confidence-building measures during their meeting at Gantz’s homethis week.
According to a statement from Gantz’s office, the measures include “status approvals on a humanitarian basis for 6000 [Palestinian] residents of Judea and Samaria, and an additional status approval for 3500 Gaza residents.”
They also include “advancing the transfer of tax payments” worth NIS 100 million ($32 million).
Additional measures include the approval of issuing business approvals for Palestinian businesspeople, 500 additional permits for Palestinian businesspeople to enter Israel with their vehicles, and the issuing of dozens of VIP permits for senior officials from the Palestinian Authority.
It was the first meeting inside of Israel for Abbas in over a decade, and the second time the two leaders met since the new Israeli government took office in June, which was also the first high-level meeting between Israel and the Palestinian leadership since 2010.
In the hours that followed the meeting, right-wing members of Israel’s coalition government criticized the meeting.
Housing and Construction Minister Ze’ev Elkin said that Gantz hadn’t been given authority from the government to conduct political negotiations, “and he knows it,” Channel 12 reported.
Furthermore, Gantz’s decision to host Abbas while the latter still supports terrorists demonstrates the defense minister’s “poor taste,” said Elkin. “It would have been better if he had found another guest,” he said.
Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel noted that Abbas still denies the Holocaust, and accused the Palestinian leader of playing “a very strange and double game.”
In an apparent response to his critics, the Defense minister, who previously served as the head of the Israeli military, tweeted on Wednesday: “Only those who bear the responsibility of sending soldiers into battle know how deep is the commitment to prevent it. This is how I have always acted, and this is how I will continue to act.”
The U.S. hopes that the meeting will “advance freedom, security, and prosperity for Palestinians and Israelis alike in 2022,” says State Department spokesman Ned Price.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the United States was “very pleased” with the meeting.
“We hope confidence-building measures discussed will accelerate momentum to further advance freedom, security and prosperity for Palestinians and Israelis alike in 2022,” tweeted Price.