Palestinian PM Says Israeli Practices Could Lead to Total Collapse
Abbas Warns: PNA Will Hunt, Disarm and Arrest Violators of Hudna
The Palestine National Authority (PNA) Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen) warned Monday that the practices of the
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) -- including violation of the declared truce, as well as their continuation of
assassination operations and house demolitions -- could lead to a total collapse of the situation, while at the same
time he warned Palestinian anti-Israeli occupation groups against violating the Hudna (truce).
In a statement to the UAE official news agency WAM, Abbas called on the international community to be aware of the
serious consequences, which may stem from any such collapse on the future of peace in the region.
He stressed the urgent need for the international community to send international observers to oversee implementation of
the US-sponsored roadmap peace plan "and to see for themselves who is violating the roadmap and who is committed to it.”
On Hamas pledge to retaliate against the recent assassination of two of its members, Abu Mazen said: "Hamas and other
Palestinian organizations have stuck to self-restraint – but until when?"
However in a separate statement to DPA he warned the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” and other anti-Israeli
occupation groups in the West Bank and Gaza Strip against violating the Hudna, which they together with the PNA declared
on June 29.
“Violation of the Hudna means only that these organizations want to escalate the atmosphere of tension with the Israeli
side, which seeks to use this as a pretext to avoid its commitments stipulated in the roadmap,” Palestinian daily Al
Ayyam reported on Tuesday.
He stressed the PNA Cabinet is committed to Hudna and will crack down on its violators.
“We (the PNA Cabinet) are committed to the Hudna agreement,” he said, adding, “there are clear instructions to the
Minister of State for Security Affairs Mohammad Dahlan and the security agencies led by him to pursue, hunt, disarm and
arrest the violators of the Hudna,” he said.
PM Abbas indicated that the PNA had clearly pledged to the US side to implement the Palestinian obligations according to
the “roadmap,” which was drafted and adopted by the European Union, the United States, the United Nations and Russia.
“The Americans indicated their willingness to stand by us…if we implement what is required from us,” he said.
Israel Says It Is Not Party to Truce
Ahead of a visit by the US top Middle East envoy William Burns on Tuesday, Israel froze the US-sponsored “roadmap” peace
plan, defied Washington on the Apartheid Separation Wall it is building on occupied Palestinian territory and diverted
attention to its northern front with Lebanon.
The PNA voiced impatience Sunday with the United States shuttle diplomacy that is not delivering on the ground.
The PNA Minister of Cabinet Affairs Yasser Abed Rabbo has already requested US intervention, in order to prevent the
collapse of the Hudna.
“We have told the Americans that sending envoys now and then is insufficient,” Abed Rabbo said.
“The US Administration has to commit to the ‘roadmap’ and to send envoys who are seriously interested in monitoring the
implementation,” of the roadmap plan.
But the Israelis were not helpful to shore up the ceasefire.
“This cease-fire is not an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. The cease-fire is an agreement among the
Palestinians themselves. We have a security agreement with the Palestinians,” Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom
said Monday.
Abbas warned Sunday that Israel should take the responsibility if the ceasefire collapses, because it has gone from
killing to killing.
A full 73 percent of the Palestinian public supports the 90-day Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire declared last month,
according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), a top-polling agency on
Palestinian public opinion.
Earlier the Palestinian leadership said Saturday that the Israeli flagrant violations of the Hudna (truce) is aimed at
testing US and international reactions, and prove that Israel’s government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon seeks to
re-spark the cycle of violence and terrorism.
“The government of (Israeli PM) Sharon is testing the international and the United States reactions in particular, in
order to expand its aggression, continue its policy of assassinations, military incursions and siege (imposed on
Palestinian territories by the Israeli Occupation Forces “IOF”), and to continue detaining more than ten thousand
Palestinians,” the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said in a statement released by
the official news agency WAFA on Saturday.
The IOF on Friday assassinated two Hamas activists, killed two other Palestinians in Askar refugee camp near the
northern West Bank city of Nablus and made a military incursion into Jenin, in which four Palestinians were wounded.
Hamas Committed to Hudna, Not to Its Extension
Palestinian factions on Tuesday confirmed they are still committed to the cease-fire.
Hamas leader Ismael Haniah told Al Jazeera satellite TV station Tuesday his Islamic movement will honor its agreement
with the PNA and the Hudna it declared on June 29.
However the groups said they would not consider an extension to their truce while Israeli “violations” continues.
Ismail Haniya said it was inappropriate to talk about an extension of the ceasefire at the moment.
"It's difficult now to talk about extending the ceasefire at a time when Israeli violations are still continuing,” he
told AFP. "Israel will be responsible for the results of the violations.”
Similarly Mohammed al-Hindi, an Islamic Jihad political leader, said speculation on any possible extension of the truce
was “damaging” to the Palestinians at a time when people should instead be concentrating on the Israeli aggression.
"They are moving the ball to the Palestinian field. Israel does not want the ceasefire and is violating the ceasefire so
we cannot talk about extending the ceasefire,” he told AFP.
"We will not discuss this issue now. There is nowhere in the world where there is a ceasefire from just one side,” said
al-Hindi.
The PNA Minister of Culture Ziad Abu Amre revealed in the wake of the Nablus raid that he had been meeting with the
groups about a possible extension and said the response had been positive.
But the raid had damaged the prospects of an extension, he said.
An Egyptian security team, which helped negotiate the truce, is due to return to the Palestinian territories in a bid to
secure an extension, although no date has yet been set for their return.