CAIRO: Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas vowed on Monday to confront Israeli military orders that could lead to deportations from the occupied West Bank.
Abbas said the orders, which target West Bank residents without proper IDs, amounted to a “provocation, following a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
“Israel has no right to deport any Palestinian, and the Palestinian Authority will not allow it and will confront it with various means, he said, quoted by Egypt’s official news agency MENA, without elaborating.
The move has been condemned in the Arab world at a time when peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel are locked in a dispute over Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
On April 13, the Cairo-based Arab League called on the Palestinians to refuse to heed the amended orders from the Israeli military that could trigger the West Bank deportations.
The 22-member League pledged its “full support for Palestinian steps in the occupied territories to resist this decision, while urging Palestinians “to reject and not cooperate and acquiesce in it.
Israel denies it plans to carry out mass expulsions, saying the new orders which came into effect last week concern only people staying in the West Bank illegally and that the changes will allow oversight of deportation orders.
The Jewish state occupied the West Bank including mainly Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War. The territory would form the main core of a promised future Palestinian state. -AFP
