LONDON: Following the power shift in Damascus last December, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has met with the president of the Syrian Arab Republic for the first time. On the fringes of an emergency Arab conference in Cairo, Abbas and Ahmad Al-Sharaa met to discuss the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip and to voice their opposition to US President Donald Trump’s plan to drive out Palestinians from Gaza and “take over” the territory.
Abbas and Al-Sharaa emphasized that the Gaza Strip was an essential component of Palestine’s land while talking about the most recent events in the occupied West Bank. According to the Palestine News Agency, Abbas stated that the key goals were to keep the ceasefire in Gaza going, provide aid, and have Israeli forces leave the area.
Israeli measures that threaten to further intrude on their area are opposed by both Abbas and Al-Sharaa. The prospect of a Palestinian state is in jeopardy due to the Israeli government’s aspirations to annex a portion of the West Bank, the growth of settlements there, and the forced relocation of thousands of Palestinians from refugee camps.
Israeli forces have broken a decades-old agreement by occupying portions of southern Syria, including the strategically significant top of Mount Hermon, since Bashar Assad’s regime collapsed in December. Diab Al-Louh, the Palestinian ambassador to Egypt, and Hussein Al-Sheikh, the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, were also in attendance.
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