A brief statement from Lapid’s office said the two men “spoke about continuing cooperation and the need to ensure calm and tranquility”.
Abbas congratulated Lapid on becoming prime minister, the statement said, as Lapid conveyed his best wishes to the Palestinian leader ahead of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim holiday that begins on Friday.
Palestinian news agency Wafa also reported the telephone conversation, adding that President Abbas expressed his wish that “peace and stability prevail in the region as soon as possible”.
Lapid’s predecessor, right-wing Naftali Bennett, chose not to speak to Abbas during his 12-month term, while longtime leader Benjamin Netanyahu oversaw a degradation of Israel’s relations with the Palestinian Authority, and the last time spoke with the Palestinian leader was in 2017.
Underscoring the change in approach by the current Israeli government, Defense Minister Benny Gantz visited Abbas in his Ramallah office on Thursday night.
During the meeting, the Palestinian leader “emphasized the importance of creating a political horizon [e] commitment to signed agreements,” Wafa said, referring to a series of agreements signed between the two sides in the 1990s.
A statement from Gantz’s office said the meeting discussed “security and civilian coordination ahead of US President Biden’s visit to Israel.”
In addition to Israel, Joe Biden is also due to visit the West Bank next week, where he will meet Abbas – in the first meeting between the Palestinian leader and a US president since 2017. The White House hopes the meeting will help draw a line under the significant collapse in US-Palestinian relations seen under the Trump administration.
In a separate development earlier this week, Abbas traveled to Algeria, where he met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, also for the first time in several years.
The meeting was held on the sidelines of commemorations to mark the 60th anniversary of Algeria’s independence, the country’s state news agency reported.
Relations between Abbas’ Fatah party, the largest Palestinian faction, and Hamas, the Islamist group that administers Gaza, have been strained for many years. In June 2007, the two groups were in open conflict with each other, in violence that ended the Palestinian Authority’s control of Gaza.
Source: CNN Brasil
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