Palestinians ‘Encouraged’ by Gantz’s Disengagement Remarks

RAMALLAH (Reuters) —
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed, File)

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas‘s spokesman gave a cautious welcome on Wednesday to remarks by Benny Gantz suggesting openness to a future removal of residents from Yehudah and Shomron.

“It’s encouraging, if he succeeds and he sticks to this opinion,” Nabil Abu Rdeineh told Reuters after Gantz, discussing accommodation with the Palestinians, told Yediot Acharonot that he opposed dominating another people and suggested Israel might repeat its 2005 disengagement.

After the interview, the Resilience Party issued a statement saying that “the disengagement was directed and led by the Likud. Netanyahu voted for it, and his minister Miri Regev was in charge of public relations for it. A government led by Gantz will not take unilateral actions in evacuating settlements. The ‘lessons’ referred to in the interview related to the divisions among Israelis the disengagement caused, and emphasized the importance of the primacy of security in any future policy.”

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