JERUSALEM // Israel’s defence minister on Thursday accused Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas of trying to spark a fresh conflict between Israel and Mr Abbas’s longtime rivals Hamas.
Avigdor Lieberman said Mr Abbas, head of the secular Fatah movement that rules the occupied West Bank, was trying to increase tensions by cutting payments for electricity and other services in Gaza.
“Abu Mazen didn’t make a one-time cut,” Mr Lieberman told the annual security conference in Herzliya near Tel Aviv, referring to Mr Abbas by his nickname.
“His intention is actually to continue cuts and in a few months to stop paying for fuel, medicines, salaries and many other things.”
“In my opinion the strategy is to hurt Hamas and also to drag Hamas into a conflict with Israel,” he said.
Islamists Hamas seized Gaza from Fatah in 2007 and the two Palestinian factions have had hostile relations since.
The Abbas-led Palestinian Authority had nonetheless continued to pay for electricity and some other services in Gaz, but Mr Abbas recently announced the PA would no longer pay Israel to supply electricity to Gaza, prompting Israel to stop deliveries this week.
The move threatened to leave the two million Gazans with as little as two hours of power a day, prompting warnings of risks of Hamas retaliation.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars in Gaza since 2008, most recently in 2014.
But on Thursday, the Gaza Strip’s sole power station was fired up again after fuel supplies from Egypt helped to ease an energy crisis, the energy authority in the Palestinian enclave said.
The announcement came after Egypt delivered a million litres of fuel to the station on Wednesday, three days after Israel began cutting electricity supplies to Gaza.
The energy authority said two of the four generators at the power station had resumed operations and residents would now receive around six hours of mains power a day – up from as little as two earlier in the week.
Separately, the senior adviser to Donald Trump and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Wednesday in a bid to revive long-fractured Middle East peacemaking that Washington acknowledged will take some time.
Mr Kushner travelled with Mr Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt to Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, for two hours of talks with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas after iftar.
“Kushner and Greenblatt discussed with President Abbas priorities for the Palestinians and potential next steps, acknowledging the need for economic opportunities for Palestinians and major investments in the Palestinian economy,” the White House said.Mr Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said all major issues at the heart of the conflict were discussed.
At the meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Kushner was accompanied by Mr Greenblatt and David Friedman, Washington’s ambassador to Israel.
“The three United States officials discussed Israel’s priorities and potential next steps with Prime Minister Netanyahu, acknowledging the critical role Israel plays in the security of the region,” the White House said.
“The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to advancing Mr Trump’s goal of a genuine and lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians that enhances stability in the region,” the statement read.
Mr Trump has described peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians as “the ultimate deal” and made it a priority. As well as receiving both the Palestinian and Israeli leaders in the White House, he visited the region last month.
But it remains unclear what approach Mr Trump to take on resolving one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
For at least two decades, the goal of US-led diplomacy has been a “two-state solution”, meaning an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side and at peace with Israel.
But when Mr Trump met Mr Netanyahu in Washington in February, he said he was not fixed on two states saying, “I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like.”
* Agence France-Presse and Reuters
