Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday announced a cut in all ties with Israel and the United States, including security cooperation.
Abbas said the peace plan unveiled by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday was in "violation of the (autonomy) accords" launched in Oslo in 1993 by Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel will have to "bear responsibility as an occupying power" for the Palestinian territories, he told an emergency Arab League meeting in Cairo.
Abbas said that he told Israel and the US that “there will be no relations with them, including the security ties" following the deal.
Arab foreign ministers met in Egypt´s capital to discuss the White House plan that would grant the Palestinians limited self-rule in parts of the occupied West Bank, while allowing Israel to annex all its settlements there and keep nearly all of east Jerusalem.
The meeting at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo was requested by the Palestinians, who responded angrily to the US deal.
Abbas has said "a thousand no´s" to the proposal. He said the Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state with its capital in east Jerusalem.
The Arab League’s head, Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, said Saturday the proposal revealed a “sharp turn” in the long-standing US foreign policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“This turn does not help achieve peace and a just solution,” he declared.
Aboul-Gheit said that the Palestinians reject the proposal. He called for the two sides, the Israelis and the Palestinians, to negotiate to reach a “satisfactory solution for both of them.”
Trump unveiled the long-awaited proposal Tuesday in Washington. It would allow Israel to annex all its West Bank settlements - which the Palestinians and most of the international community view as illegal - as well as the Jordan Valley, which accounts for roughly a fourth of the West Bank.
In return, the Palestinians would be granted statehood in Gaza, scattered chunks of the West Bank and some neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem, all linked together by a new network of roads, bridges, and tunnels. Israel would control the state´s borders and airspace and maintain overall security authority. Critics of the plan say this would rob Palestinian statehood of any meaning.
The plan would abolish the right of return for Palestinian refugees displaced by the 1948 war and their descendants, a key Palestinian demand. The entire agreement would be contingent on Gaza´s Hamas rulers and other armed groups disarming, something they have always adamantly rejected.
