Senior Palestinian officials left today (Saturday) for Jordan via a Jordanian helicopter that landed in the Muqta area in Ramallah ahead of the convening of a regional meeting tomorrow in Aqaba led by the US, with the participation of Egypt and Jordan.
The meeting was defined as an "emergency summit" and its purpose is to discuss ways to ease tensions and prevent an increase in security escalation towards the beginning of the month of Ramadan and during it.
Chairman of the Palestinian Authority Abu Mazen (archive), photo: AFP
The summit will convene as part of the American effort to forge understandings that will bring calm in the territories of Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem within a formula that will be agreed upon for Jerusalem and Ramallah.
A Palestinian source said that the Palestinian representatives will demand in the talks American and Arab guarantees for the agreements that will be reached, so that they will have an address in the event of an Israeli violation.
He also noted that the Palestinian side insists on not reducing the talks to the security issue and demands that the package of agreements be tied to a political horizon.
The Jordanian website "Allred" quoted a senior Jordanian who said that "the meeting comes as part of the efforts to stop the unilateral steps in order to reach a period of calm and confidence-building steps, in addition to security and economic steps that will ease the suffering of the Palestinian people."
The riots in Nablus, photo: AFP
A Palestinian source told the Saudi channel "Ashrak" that the participation of the Palestinian side in the Aqaba meeting was intended to stop the Israeli measures, including the construction in the settlements, the killings, the raids in the West Bank cities, the violence of the settlers, in order to allow a return to the implementation of the commitments in the signed agreements and to create a political horizon that will lead to the end of the occupation.
regain control of the areas
At the meeting, the parties will discuss the immediate steps that must be taken to moderate the escalation on the ground and stop the tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as a broader and long-term plan that aims to allow the Palestinian Authority to regain its control in areas where its power has weakened, and to train thousands of Palestinian security personnel to deal with the armed militias in Jenin and Nablus.
This is an American initiative that was formulated in recent times and received the agreement in principle of the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen.
Security forces in clashes with Palestinians in Nablus, photo: AP
According to the "Allakhbar" newspaper, in exchange for the implementation of the American plan to calm the situation in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority is placing a set of demands including taking steps that will prevent its collapse and lead to an improvement in the economic situation.
Recruitment of security personnel
In addition, they demand in Ramallah to allow the PA to regain its military power in the West Bank and to stop major Israeli military operations, those that provoke anger among the Palestinian residents.
Security forces in Nablus, photo: IDF spokesman
According to a Palestinian senior official quoted in the newspaper, the members of the Palestinian delegation will demand the recruitment of ten thousand new security personnel and the training of 5,000 existing security personnel from the mechanisms, along with the introduction of weapons and equipment, as well as the establishment of a joint Palestinian-Israeli-American "coordination room" (HML) aimed at preventing the Israeli army from to conduct major operations in the West Bank without coordination.
They will also request extensive military and technical cooperation between the PA on the one hand and the American and Israeli intelligence on the other in order to fight the incitement of the organizations in Gaza and abroad, the one that pushes the residents of the West Bank to confront Israel.
On the Palestinian side, the summit will be attended by the Secretary General of the PLO's Executive Committee, Hossein Asheikh, the head of the Palestinian General Intelligence, Majed Faraj, as well as the political advisor of the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen, Majdi Khaldi. Abu Mazen himself did not is expected to participate in the gathering. According to Palestinian and Jordanian reports, there will be an Israeli delegation.
The summit comes at a politically and security sensitive time, a month before Ramadan, and a few days after the military operation in Nablus, during which 11 Palestinians were killed, most of them terrorists from the Lions' Bank and Islamic Jihad militias.
Even earlier, the Palestinians withdrew a proposed resolution condemning the construction of settlements in the UN Security Council following agreements reached under American pressure, according to which Israel will not settle new settlements in Judea and Samaria beyond the nine approved and will reduce its entries into Palestinian cities.
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