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It was reported that on Sunday evening Yair Lapid met with Palestinian Authority (PA) Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh, the latest in a string of meetings between senior Israeli and Palestinian officials.
Al-Sheikh, a close advisor to PA President Abbas who directs to PA office responsible for handling ties with Israel, announced in a statement that the two “discussed several political and bilateral issues” and that he “highlighted the need for a political horizon between the two parties based on international law”.
Lapid’s office declined to comment on the meeting, but they did not deny the reports.
Under the previous government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, senior Israeli and Palestinians officials rarely met. But the current coalition is made up of centrist and left-wing, as well as right-wing, politicians who have established contacts with their Palestinian Authority counterparts.
Naftali Bennett’s government has recently pledged to prop up the Palestinian Authority and strengthen its ailing economy, with Defence Minister Benny Gantz spearheading the move. Gantz has met with Abbas twice and both meetings were followed by Israeli announcements fulfilling some Palestinian requests.
After his Sunday meeting with Lapid, al-Sheikh said that 500 undocumented West Bank residents would receive Palestinian identification cards although, this appeared to be a continuation of a previous pledge by Gantz, rather than a new initiative.
Rulers of Gaza, the Hamas terror group, criticised the meeting as “shameful” and as a sign of “the depths to which the Palestinian Authority has fallen”. Hamas’s spokesperson stated that “the persistence of these absurd meetings with the occupation’s leadership is a betrayal of the sacrifices of our people. These shameful meetings must end immediately”.
