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RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas met with Israeli activists in Ramallah on Thursday to discuss long-term peace after Israel and Hamas agreed a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.
“I welcome the agreement signed today, the end of the war, and the release of the hostages,” Abbas told dozens of representatives from Israeli peace organizations assembled at the presidential palace in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
“A few months ago, (US President Donald) Trump had a plan to expel the Palestinians, but later he forgot about it,” he added.
“Nevertheless, we will remain in our homeland and establish a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem,” he said.
Speaking from a podium in the presence of Arab-Israeli Knesset member Ayman Odeh and the Palestinian Authority’s vice president Hussein Al-Sheikh, a jovial Abbas spoke to a friendly audience, sometimes exchanging smiles and jokes with activists.
Two power cuts momentarily left all attendees in the dark, an AFP journalist reported.
Among them was Iddo Ilam, an activist and refusnik who explained why he chose not to serve in the Israeli army, as Abbas gestured to him with two thumbs up.
“We are asking for a different future, peace between Jews and Palestinians,” said Rula Daoud, co-director of Standing Together, an Israeli grassroots movement aiming to bring together Palestinians and Jewish Israeli communities.
Absent from the conversation were the details of the ceasefire agreement struck early Thursday between Israel and Hamas — an adversary of Abbas’s Fatah party.
The deal is expected to free the remaining living hostages still held in Gaza within days, in a major step toward ending the two-year war that has killed tens of thousands and unleashed a dire humanitarian crisis.
The deal would also see Israel release nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and allow a surge of aid into Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has all but rejected the option of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) ruling over post-war Gaza.
Nonetheless, its vice president Hussein Al-Sheikh said on X on Thursday that the PA had conducted all preparations to govern the post-war Gaza Strip and oversee its reconstruction.

PARIS: The Sudanese army, at war with paramilitaries since April 2023, used chlorine gas in two 2024 attacks north of the capital Khartoum, according to a media report released Thursday.
In June, Washington imposed sanctions on Sudan's army-allied government over the use of chemical weapons but did not specify where or when they were used.
The investigation by France24 shows the army appears to have dropped two chlorine barrels in September 2024 around the al-Jaili oil refinery north of Khartoum.
The RSF controlled the area and Sudan's largest oil facility at the time.
Human Rights Watch said: "The apparent use of a common industrial chemical as a weapon creates a disturbing precedent".
Sudan's government has repeatedly denied the US allegations, calling them "baseless" and "political blackmail".
Last month, it said an internal investigation had revealed "no evidence" of chemical contamination in Khartoum state.
France24 used open source data, footage circulating on social media and the opinions of five experts to confirm the use of chlorine gas.
They verified videos showing an industrial chlorine barrel, evidently dropped from a plane on September 5, 2024 on the Garri military base near al-Jaili, that had released a yellow cloud of gas consistent with chlorine.
The report traces the barrel to an Indian company that had exported it to Port Sudan in August 2024. The company told the French outlet its intended use was "solely for the treatment of drinking water".
France24 also verified reports of a second barrel dropped from an aircraft on September 13, 2024, on the Jaili oil refinery.
The RSF has throughout the war launched drone strikes, but does not have demonstrated combat aircraft capabilities, which the Sudanese army has used extensively.
Since April 2023, the war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.
It has also unleashed countless atrocities on Sudanese civilians, with both sides accused of war crimes including indiscriminate bombing and targeting civilians.
Both sides are under US sanctions, with Washington determining in January the RSF had committed genocide in the western region of Darfur.