U.S. efforts to broker a resumption of peace talks ended on Sunday without a breakthrough, a top Palestinian official said, although Washington's top diplomat hailed "real progress".
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has spent the past four days locked in intensive shuttle diplomacy between the Israeli and Palestinian leadership in a bid to draw the two sides back into direct negotiations after a gap of nearly three years.
Full StoryIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to push through a "painful evacuation" of settlements as part of a final peace deal, a minister said Thursday just hours before the arrival of Washington's top diplomat.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was due in Jerusalem on Thursday evening for his fifth visit in as many months as he seeks to draw Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table after a hiatus of nearly three years.
Full StoryPalestine’s President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday stated his rejection of "any interference" in Lebanese affairs.
“We stress the rejection of the Palestinian factions of any interference in Lebanese affairs,” Abbas said in a phone call with President Michel Suleiman.
Full StoryPalestinian president Mahmoud Abbas will meet on Sunday with prime minister Rami Hamdallah in a new bid to defuse a political crisis that prompted the premier to submit his resignation, a senior Palestinian official said.
The 11:00 am (0800 GMT) meeting at Abbas's offices in the West Bank city of Ramallah will be their third in 48 hours.
Full StoryPalestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due to arrive in Beirut in July to discuss the bilateral ties with senior Lebanese officials, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Friday.
According to the newspaper, Abbas will focus on the conditions of Palestinian refugees, who fled the turmoil in Syria to neighboring Lebanon.
Full StoryPalestinian prime minister Rami Hamdallah offered his resignation to president Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, just two weeks after he took office, a high-ranking government official told Agence France Presse.
Hamdallah "presented his resignation in writing to the president following disagreements with his two deputies," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Full StoryPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday reiterated his support for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to revive peace talks with Israel.
During a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Ramallah, Abbas talked of the Palestinians' "commitment to the success of Kerry's efforts to save the peace process in order to restart serious talks leading to the end of the occupation and the establishment of a an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
Full StoryPalestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas met Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, a day after Israel's closest South American ally signed a free trade deal with the Jewish state.
Colombia was one of a minority of states to abstain in a vote on upgrading the Palestinians' status at the United Nations in November which passed with overwhelming international support.
Full StoryIsrael's deputy foreign minister on Wednesday accused Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas of seeking "unilateral" moves to seek statehood at the expense of direct peace talks.
Abbas "is in no hurry to restart negotiations, despite the pressures on him, because he thinks that the unilateral path will get him further and that way he won't have to pay a political price," Zeev Elkin said on public radio.
Full StoryIncoming Palestinian prime minister Rami Hamdallah, who has been tasked with forming a new government, is likely to present his cabinet line-up "in the coming few days," president Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday.
"I asked him to form a new government and in the coming few days, he will finish his consultations and declare a new government," Abbas told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, just two days after he tasked the respected academic with piecing together a new cabinet.
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