29 July 2013 - 13:40
Palestinians protest resumption of peace talks with Israel

Hundreds of Palestinians have taken to the streets to protests against the planned resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Palestinians took to the streets of Ramallah on Sunday and began marching towards the PA Acting Chief Mahmoud Abbas' headquarters before the police confronted them. 

Several officers and demonstrators were injured and some were arrested during the march organized by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 

The Palestinian-Israeli talks were halted in September 2010 over disagreements on Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank. 

The PA had previously demanded that Israel cease all settlement activities before talks can be resumed. Israel has refused to do so and says it will to re-launch talks without any preconditions. 

On July 19, US Secretary of State John Kerry said if everything goes as expected, Israel-Palestine negotiations will resume soon. 

On the same day, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas rejected Kerry’s proposal for the resumption of talks between Israel and the PA, saying it “considers the Palestinian Authority’s return to negotiations with the occupation to be at odds with the national consensus.” 

Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East al-Quds (Jerusalem), and the Gaza Strip and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the Palestinian territories occupied in the Six-Day War of 1967. 

Tel Aviv, however, has refused to return to the 1967 borders and is unwilling to discuss the issue of al-Quds.

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