Abbas: Will stop agreements with Israel
He has made similar threats before and not implemented them
Ramallah- Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he has decided to stop implementing agreements with Israel amid worsening relations between the two sides.
“We announce the leadership’s decision to stop implementing the agreements signed with the Israeli side,” he said in a speech in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
He said the Palestinians would immediately form a committee to study how to implement the decision.
The two governments work together on matters ranging from water to security, and withdrawing from agreements could impact security in the occupied West Bank.
Abbas, 84, has made similar threats before and not implemented them.
Palestinian officials have also threatened in the past to stop implementing all accords with Israel, but Abbas had previously not spoken so definitively.
Relations between Abbas’s government, based in the West Bank, and the Israeli regime have worsened in recent months.
In February, the occupation regime decided to deduct around $10 million a month from tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, corresponding to the amount it said the Palestinian National Authority pays to families of prisoners or directly to inmates in Israeli regime jails.
The Palestinians have in response refused to take any of the roughly $180 million in monthly tax revenues until the full amount is transferred, leaving Abbas’s government in financial crisis.