According to reports, Mahmoud Abbas declined a US invitation to speak after a hospital in Gaza was bombed.
When US President Joe Biden visited Israel on Wednesday, Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority declined to speak with him over the phone, according to a story in Israeli state media on Friday.
According to a Palestinian source in the West Bank cited by the Kan news agency, Biden’s staff tried to set up a meeting between the two leaders but Abbas turned it down.
The US president promised to support efforts to “bring urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people,” according to a readout of the discussion released by the White House, during a phone call between Biden and Abbas on Saturday.
READ ASLO: Biden accuses the Palestinians of attacking the Gaza hospital
On Wednesday, the two leaders were scheduled to meet in Jordan with King Abdullah II of Jordan and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt. However, following a fatal blast at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital hospital in Gaza the previous evening, the Jordanian side decided to call off the summit.
The explosion, which the Palestinian Health Ministry claimed killed almost 500 people, was blamed on both Israelis and Palestinians. Ayman Safadi, the foreign minister of Jordan, sided with the Palestinians and branded Israel’s strike on the hospital “a heinous war crime.”
After the conference was called off, Biden spent Wednesday in Israel, where he openly supported Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that a Palestinian rocket struck the hospital.
On Saturday, a conference will be held in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss the ongoing conflict. Numerous leaders from the European and Gulf regions as well as Abbas are anticipated attendees. Officials from the US and Israel will not be present.
