UPDATE - Abbas meets US’ Blinken in Ramallah, rejects displacement of Palestinians

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS

By Qais Abu Samra

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected any attempts to displace Palestinians during his meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the West Bank on Wednesday.

Blinken arrived in Ramallah on Wednesday as part of a regional tour that started with Türkiye for talks on the conflict in the Gaza Strip.

“We will not allow the displacement of any Palestinian whether in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank,” Abbas said during the meeting as cited by the state news agency Wafa.

The Palestinian leader warned against Israeli measures for displacing the Palestinians from their lands.

“The Gaza Strip is an integral part of the Palestinian state,” he stressed.

Several Israeli officials have called for the displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip amid a deadly Israeli offensive on the seaside enclave.

Talks between Abbas and Blinken also covered the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Blinken reiterated the US stance that all Palestinian tax revenues collected by Israel should be continuously transferred to the Palestinian Authority, the Wafa news agency reported.

The chief diplomat also affirmed support for taking tangible steps to establish a Palestinian state to live in peace and security with Israel.

Abbas is scheduled to fly to Jordan later Wednesday to attend a 3-way Arab summit with the leaders of Jordan and Egypt.

Washington has so far refrained from calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and has provided Tel Aviv with military, intelligence, and diplomatic support.

Israel has pounded the Palestinian enclave since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 23,357 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 59,410 others, according to local health authorities.

Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas offensive.

About 85% of Gazans have been displaced, while all of them are food insecure, according to the UN. Hundreds of thousands of people are living without shelter, and ⁠less than half of aid trucks are entering the territory than before the start of the conflict.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar and Mohamad Sio in Ankara