Palestinian Authority to restoring Israel coordination
The Palestinian Authority said Tuesday it will restore coordination with Israel, ending a six-month suspension. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas had announced a halt to coordination with Israel, including US-backed security cooperation, in May in response to Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank. "In the light of Mahmud Abbas's international contacts... and given the written and verbal commitments we have received from the Israelis, we will resume relations where they were before May 19, 2020," Hussein al-Sheikh, the PA's civil affairs minister, said late Tuesday. But Hamas, the Islamist group which runs the Gaza Strip, condemned the PA's lifting of the suspension. It said the move was a "stab in the back" for reconciliation efforts between the group and Abbas' West Bank-based administration, adding that Biden "would not" end Israel's half-century-old occupation of Palestinian territory.
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