Palestinian President: Denying the Palestinian people's right to self-determination will not bring security and peace to anyone

The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday that denying the Palestinian people's right to self-determination will not bring security and peace to anyone, reiterating his commitment to peace through dialogue as a strategic option.

This came during his reception of a delegation of Israeli peace activists, at the presidential headquarters in the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, according to the official Palestinian news agency.

Abbas added that "the denial by extremist forces in Israel of the Palestinian people's right to self-determination and achieving independence in their state, alongside the state of Israel, in accordance with international legitimacy, will not bring security and peace to anyone, and this is what we have been witnessing for decades".

He emphasized that peace according to the two-state solution "achieves security, peace, and stability for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and the peoples of the region".

He renewed the affirmation that "achieving peace through dialogue will remain our strategic option, because we believe in political, diplomatic, and legal work, and we condemn violence and terrorism in all its forms and names".

He continued that "the Israeli occupation authorities, with their insistence on settlement, annexation, and apartheid, and the policy of killing and destruction, denying Palestinian rights, withholding funds, and other unilateral measures, have isolated Israel from the international community, and what we want and strive for is to live in peace, stability, and good neighborliness with the Israeli people".

He explained that "the key to regional security and peace is only through reaching a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement based on the decisions of international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative, so that all peoples and countries in the region may enjoy security, peace, and prosperity".

Since April 2014, negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian sides have stopped, due to Tel Aviv's refusal to halt settlement, release old prisoners, and its renunciation of the two-state solution option.

Since then, Israel has waged several wars on the Gaza Strip, while the pace of settlement has accelerated significantly in the West Bank during the two years of the genocide war on Gaza.

The Israeli genocide war launched by Israel in Gaza starting from October 8, 2023, for two years, has left about 71,000 Palestinian dead and more than 171,000 injured, most of them children and women, and immense destruction with a reconstruction cost estimated by the United Nations at about 70 billion dollars.

Concurrently, the Israeli army and settlers have escalated their attacks in the West Bank, resulting in the killing of more than 1,102 Palestinians, injuring about 11,000, in addition to arresting more than 21,000.