RAMALLAH, August 20, 2018 (WAFA) – Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, said on Sunday that a truce in Gaza is a national demand but it should be part of a comprehensive plan.
"The truce is a national demand and we want to protect our people in the Gaza Strip against the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation," Erekat said in an interview on Palestine TV.
"We are for total calm in the context of a comprehensive national plan.," he said.
The PLO official and longtime negotiator with Israel said that "if Hamas decides to conclude a unilateral truce agreement with Israel, it will be contributing to the destruction of the Palestinian national project."
He warned that the focal point in the Israeli project known as the Nation-State Basic Law, recently adopted by the Israeli parliament and criticized as a racist law, is the elimination of two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from the political process.
He urged Hamas, the de facto power in Gaza since its 2007 coup against the Palestinian Authority which is holding indirect truce negotiations with Israel, to recognizing these risks.
"Hamas shoulders the historical responsibility for aborting the Palestinian national project, the responsibility of every person in the Gaza Strip and the requirements of the Gaza Strip in the event of an agreement with Israel," he said.
"The Gaza Strip is an integral part of our country,” he said, warning that the project of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump is the separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, “which we will not be party to."
In another context, Erekat expressed joy at the election of the State of Palestine as the next president of the Group of 77 in the United Nations, which is composed of 134 countries representing 80% of the population of the earth. He said Palestine will assume its duties in the Group of 77, pointing out that this will qualify Palestine to upgrade its status in United Nations.
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