Ramallah: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday told the Palestine Liberation Organization’s parliament, which was meeting for its first full session since the 1990s, that he plans to take unspecified “tough steps” soon against Israel and the US.

Abbas told hundreds of delegates that he is sticking to his rejection of any US proposals for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal following the Trump administration’s recognition in December of occupied Jerusalem as the Israeli regime’s capital, and a decision to move the US Embassy there in mid-May.

“This is completely unacceptable,” he told the Palestinian National Council members during the opening of their four-day meeting in the West Bank. “We will not accept this deal, and we will not accept the US as the sole broker.”

The 83-year-old Abbas warned that he might “take tough steps in the near future in our relationship with our neighbours [Israel] and the Americans.” He did not elaborate, but said they would be important and far-reaching.

In rambling comments bound to trigger a backlash in Israel, Abbas also spoke about his views of history, portraying the creation of Israel as a European colonial project.

“The truth is that this project is a colonial project aimed at planting foreign bodies in the region,” he said. “But this does not mean we should uproot them. We should co-exist with them on the basis of a two-state solution.”

The meeting of the PLO parliament comes at a time of deep divisions between Abbas and his domestic rival, Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has raised its leadership profile in recent weeks by organising mass protests on the Gaza border with Israel. In the weekly marches, thousands of Palestinians gather near the border fence, with smaller groups approaching the barrier, throwing stones or firebombs and burning tyres.

More than 40 protesters have been killed and more than 1,700 wounded by Israeli occupation army fire over the past month.

In a rare move, Abbas praised the “brothers in Hamas” for belatedly adopting what he called peaceful resistance.

“Thank God, they [Hamas] finally agreed and this is effective,” he said, while urging organisers to keep people away from the border fence because of the high risk of harm.

Some Hamas leaders have suggested there would be an eventual mass breach of the border as protests continue.

Despite the rare praise for his rivals, Abbas posed tough conditions for ending the internal political rift that broke open in 2007, when Hamas drove Abbas-loyal forces from Gaza a year after winning Palestinian parliament elections. Since the takeover, Israel and Egypt have enforced a devastating border blockade on Gaza.

Egyptian mediators have proposed that the internationally backed Abbas assume government responsibilities in Gaza as a way of ending the blockade. Abbas said Monday that he will do so only if Hamas hands over all authority — an unlikely prospect since the group refuses to give up control over its weapons.