Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Isaac Herzog might hold talks soon, according to diplomatic sources in Tel Aviv.
Herzog, who served as head of the opposition and the Labor Party in the past decade, held several meetings with Abbas in Ramallah in the past.
The sources said that Abbas and Herzog are considered close friends and reached a draft peace agreement during their meetings between 2013 and 2015 to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to the official Israeli channel Kan-11, Abbas congratulated Herzog on his election as president last Sunday. They had a friendly conversation in which they stressed the desire to work towards peace.
During the phone call, Abbas stressed the need to achieve a comprehensive truce in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, according to the Wafa news agency.
He affirmed the need to exert practical measures to establish political climates to achieve a just and comprehensive peace.
Herzog tweeted that he told Abbas about his intentions to hold dialogue “with the hope of assisting in advancing relations and the hope for peace between two peoples living side by side.”
According to Kan, Abbas mediated the 40-minutes call last Monday between Herzog and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Kan’s correspondent Amichai Stein quoted an Israeli political official as saying that the two presidents discussed resuming the cooperation between Tel Aviv and Ankara in various fields and that Erdogan confirmed during the call the need to push the Israeli-Palestinian forward.
The Israeli Walla news website reported that Tel Aviv believes the stalemate in relations between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships will soon end, citing the meeting between Herzog and Abbas as the first step on this path.
The Bennett-Lapid government decided to refrain from making decisions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of the fundamental differences between its leaders on the issue.
Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told his European counterparts that there is currently no possibility of a two-state solution.
He asserted his support for the solution but noted that the lack of confidence between both parties of the government prevents practical decisions for a comprehensive settlement.
“If there is eventually a Palestinian state, it must be a peace-loving democracy. We cannot be asked to take part in the building of another threat to our lives,” says Lapid.
