US and Jordanian officials will also attend the meeting in the Sharm el-Sheikh resort to “support Israeli-Palestinian dialogue to end unilateral measures and the cycle of violence,” the ministry said.
In Aqaba, Jordan, in late February, during the first meeting between them this year, Israelis and Palestinians pledged to work to “de-escalate the conflict,” which has claimed the lives of 86 Palestinians, 13 Israelis, and one Ukrainian since its inception. . of the year, according to AFP counts from official Israeli and Palestinian sources. On Thursday, four Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Jenin in the West Bank, where 20 Palestinians have been killed this year. And on Saturday, a rocket fired from Gaza landed in Israel without causing any casualties, according to the Israeli military.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which brings together various Palestinian factions but not Hamas, is negotiating with Israel, led by one of the most right-wing governments in the country’s history, formed in December by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But in the occupied territories, the PLO’s participation in the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting drew criticism, with rallies held in the blockaded Gaza Strip and calls for demonstrations in the occupied West Bank.
According to Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, the Islamist movement “decided to intensify resistance to the occupation” and “opposes the Sharm el-Sheikh summit and all summits aimed at calming the situation.” Palestinian leaders “must take responsibility” and “abandon the talks in Aqaba and Sharm el-Sheikh,” the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) told AFP.
Egypt, its diplomacy and, above all, its intelligence services are periodically called upon to intervene in the conflict: the first Arab country to sign peace with Israel in 1979, and a neighbor of Gaza, Cairo welcomes both the Israeli heads of government and the leaders of various Palestinian parties.
Meanwhile
As the French newspaper Le Figaro reported in February, citing a source close to the French president, Emmanuel Macron claimed that “the five former and current French consuls-general in Jerusalem and the five former and current heads of the DGSE (French Foreign Intelligence Service ), at his request, constitute, each in turn, a list of two names of Palestinian politicians who could replace Mahmoud Abbas, 87, at the helm of the Palestinian Authority.
