Palestinian officers warned that any move by Israel to annex settlements will result in Palestinian violence.
“We are going to a confrontation on the ground if there is annexation,” Jibril Rajoub disclosed to Kan Radio. Jibril Rajoub heads the Palestinian football association and has executed a campaign to get Israel kicked out of FIFA, the international federation governing association football.
Earlier, a top adviser to Abbas implied that a unilateral Israeli move to impose authority over territory Palestinians say should be theirs may lead to a renewal of suicide bombings.
“Each home, each young person, can turn into a powder keg if Israel executes the annexation. When a person loses hope for justice and peace, he may turn into a bomb,” Mahmoud al-Habbash stated.
The Hamas terror group likewise said annexation would be a cause for the spilling of blood, with Hamas official Maher Salah telling a Hamas news website that “annexation is a threat to the Palestinian national project, and will open new doors of conflict and will increase the fire. We are going to protect it with our blood.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made July 1 his target date for starting to annex Jewish settlements in the Judea and Samaria and Jordan Valley. Nevertheless, that date may get pushed off as the anticipated American approval of any annexation may not be on the same schedule as Netanyahu’s.
Under the plan, American and Israeli officers are mapping the settlements to be annexed in a move that would give Israel approximately 30% of the territory in the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria, leaving the rest for a future Palestinian state.
The settler leaders of Israel are divided on the plan, with some supporting Netanyahu and others openly criticizing the move, saying they are completely opposed to the idea of a Palestinian state and that some settlements are going to be left unprotected.
