Abbas meets with Putin in Moscow
While Israel and Hamas exchange fire in Gaza on Saturday, Palestinian President Abbas meets with Russian President Putin in an effort to harness stronger ties with the Kremlin since freezing diplomatic relations with the US.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday during an official state visit to Moscow, just days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Putin to discuss Iranian presence in Syria and the latest developments in the civil war raging in the country.
The meeting comes as the Palestinian leader seeks to harness stronger ties with the Kremlin since freezing diplomatic relations with the administration of US President Donald Trump amid anger over the decision to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
"We are resisting attempts by the Americans to impose their decisions on the most sensitive problems of Palestine," Russian news agencies quoted Abbas as saying in translated remarks.
Voicing his anger over Trump’s embassy move, the Palestinian president also told his Russian counterpart that he was concerned over Israel’s plans to demolish the shack-filled Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar, which Israel’s courts ruled was illegally built and which the IDF says poses a security risk.
Khan al-Ahmar was built without Israeli permits, which Palestinians say are impossible to obtain.
"I'm glad of the opportunity to tell you about the contact we have had with your neighbors, and leaders of various countries," Putin told him as they met at the Kremlin, in quotes carried by Russian agencies.
"I know that the situation in the region is difficult and we are grateful that you have used the World Cup as a reason to come to Moscow," Putin said, adding that he was glad of the opportunity to discuss the problems facing the Palestinians.
The meeting took place against a backdrop of military escalation on Israel’s mercurial southern border with the Gaza Strip, sparked after grenade shrapnel left an IDF major moderately wounded during Friday protests. Israel retaliated with extensive bombings in the Gaza Strip, which were answered with rockets from the Hamas-ruled enclave all night and most of the day Saturday.
During his visit to Moscow on Wednesday, Netanyahu told Putin that “Israel will thwart any attempt to violate its sovereignty both in the air and on land,” in a warning that came shortly after a Patriot missile was fired at a Syrian drone that infiltrated 10 kilometers into Israel, prompting a rocket-alert siren to go off in several communities in the Golan Heights.
