Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday that he hoped the election of a new Israeli government would allow for the resumption of peace talks.
“For many years now, we have been extending a hand to the Israeli side in order to achieve peace with them, so that Israel and Palestine may live in security, stability and peace,” Abbas said during a meeting with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides in Nicosia.
“We hope that, immediately after a new Israeli government is formed, we will be able to engage in dialogue together,” he added.
With almost all ballots counted from Israel’s pivotal election, neither the bloc of veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor the opposition bloc led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot looked able to secure a majority in parliament.
The uncertain outcome might mean weeks of trying to cobble together coalitions.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been stalled for years, despite the recognition of the State of Palestine by a growing number of countries.
Under Netanyahu’s watch, settlement construction and violence against Palestinians has soared in the occupied West Bank, where Abbas’ Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule.
Ministers in Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition have openly called for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and advocated policies encouraging Palestinians to leave the territory as well as the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu led Israel in a devastating war which has left much of Gaza in rubble following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack.
Israel has since 1967 occupied the West Bank, where more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements illegal under international law among some three million Palestinians.
