Palestinian president to end security cooperation with Israel

A Palestinian official says that the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has taken a decision to suspend the agreements made with Israel, including security coordination, and said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will announce this decision during his speech before the United Nations General Assembly at the end of September.

PLO Executive Committee member Ahmad Majdalani told al-Araby al-Jadeed: "President Abbas will announce during his speech at the United Nations the suspension of the reciprocal commitments from the Palestinian side, because Israel did not keep to its commitments that it signed on with the Palstinians."

Majdalani denied the rumours that Abbas is planning to submit his resignation and "hold the United Nations responsible for the Palestinian people." He said: "This is an internal Palestinian matter and not a United Nations concern for him to submit his resignation before it."

For his part, PLO executive committee member Saleh Rafat told the official Palestinian radio station on Monday that Abbas will announce during his speech the suspension of all Palestinian-Israeli agreements because, he said, "Israel is no longer committed to anything, particularly Jerusalem, as there were explicit provisions through which the occupation government commits to not changing anything in Jerusalem and places of worship inside it, but it has renounced the agreement."

"President Abbas will highlight in his speech the violations, incursions, and the change in the status quo in occupied Jerusalem," Rafat added.

Rafat also called on the Jordanian authorities, which have the religious jurisdiction over Al-Aqsa Mosque, to reconsider the overall Jordanian-Israeli relations "because Israel no longer respects any agreement concerning holy sites, places of worship, and the right of worshipers to access them."

Jordanian Minister of Endowments Hayel Dawood told the official Palestinian radio station on Monday morning that his country is studying the available options to respond to the dangerous Israeli escalation in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, stressing that "Jordan will not allow the occupation authorities to pass any changes related to the situation in Al-Aqsa Mosque."

The Palestinian Central Council had decided during a meeting it held in Ramallah in March to suspend the security coordination with the Israeli government and redefine the economic and political relations with it, but the decision was not implemented.