Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held meetings and held rare phone conversations with Israeli leaders in an attempt to calm tension and coordinate ahead of US President Joe Biden's first visit to the region.
According to official data, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Yair Lapid spoke separately to Abbas on Friday, following a meeting between Abbas and Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday.
The Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Liberation Organization, Hussein Al-Sheikh, said in a tweet on his Twitter account, "A phone call took place this afternoon between President Mahmoud Abbas and the Prime Minister of Israel, to congratulate the blessed Eid Al-Adha," adding that "the latest situation was briefly addressed."
The Israeli Prime Minister's office stated that Lapid and Abbas discussed "continued cooperation and the need to ensure calm" in the first call between the two since Lapid took over as interim prime minister last week, ahead of the legislative elections expected on November 1.
In a separate statement, the Israeli president's office said in a written statement, "The president spoke today with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on the occasion of the blessed Eid al-Adha."
"In his phone call, the president wished him, his family, his people and all the peoples of the region a happy holiday," he added.
"The two also discussed, among other things, preparations for US President Joe Biden's visit next week," the statement continued.
Yesterday, Abbas and Gantz held a meeting in the occupied West Bank in an attempt to calm tension and coordinate before the first visit of the US president to the region.
This is the third known meeting between Abbas and Gantz since August 2021, and the first since Lapid became prime minister last week, and Gantz said on Twitter that yesterday's meeting in Ramallah was positive and that the two sides discussed "civil and security challenges in the region and agreed to maintain to close security coordination and to avoid actions that could cause instability.
The Sheikh said in a tweet that the president "stressed during the meeting the importance of creating a political horizon, respecting the signed agreements and stopping the procedures and practices that lead to the deterioration of the situation."
Abbas also stressed the importance of "creating the atmosphere before President Biden's visit, which is welcomed by us."
For its part, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad condemned yesterday's meeting.
And she stated in a statement that "the insistence on contacts and security meetings serves the interests of the enemy and its plans, and keeps his hand free in the practice of aggression that our people are exposed to every day."
In the Palestinian context, Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), described the meeting between leaders of the Fatah and Hamas movements in Algeria last Tuesday, with the participation of Abbas and the patronage of Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and said in an interview with Algerian television, "The meeting was good and a good message."