Cairo
Palestinian factions met in Egypt to discuss reconciliation efforts amid escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. Egypt’s official news agency reported on Sunday that the meeting, chaired by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, attempted to restore unity among the various Palestinian factions.
The two main rivals — ruling Fatah and Gaza-controlled Hamas — attended the meeting in Egypt’s New Alamein City, while Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) had already announced it would skip the meeting due to political arrests of some of its members. Will boycott The meeting, mediated by Egypt, took place amid rising violence in the West Bank, Xinhua news agency reported.
Earlier in July, an Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp killed at least 12 Palestinians and injured more than 150. Palestinian and Egyptian Presidents Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi will meet on Monday, the Palestinian embassy said. Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, has been sponsoring meetings between Palestinian factions over the years, in addition to a ceasefire between the armed Palestinian movement and Israel.
Egypt has repeatedly stated that it supports the establishment of an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders by the internationally recognized two-state solution, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
