The international community will have to maintain pressure on Israel after a hoped-for ceasefire in Gaza so it accepts the creation of a Palestinian state, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said on Wednesday.
A ceasefire agreement appears close following a recent round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, with mediators in Doha making a final push Wednesday to seal a deal.
“The ceasefire we’re talking about… came about primarily because of international pressure. So pressure does pay off,” Mustafa said before a conference in Oslo.
Israel must “be shown what’s right and what’s wrong, and that the veto power on peace and statehood for Palestinians will not be accepted and tolerated any longer,” he told reporters in the Norwegian capital.
He was speaking at the start of the third meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, gathering representatives from some 80 states and organisations in Oslo.
A ceasefire is “necessary, but not enough”, Mustafa later told reporters after a meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store.
“We need a ceasefire to start doing other things,” he said, adding that a truce should lead to greater security, the opening of more border crossings in Gaza and more humanitarian assistance.
‘Optimistic’
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, the host of Wednesday’s meeting, meanwhile stressed that a “ceasefire is the prerequisite for peace, but it is not peace.”
“We need to move forward now towards a two-state solution. And since one of the two states exists, which is Israel, we need to build the other state, which is Palestine,” he added.
According to analysts, the two-state solution appears more remote than ever.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, firmly supported by US President-elect Donald Trump, is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Mustafa said nonetheless that “we are actually optimistic about working with the new administration towards advancing our peace agenda.”
Israel is not represented at the Oslo meeting.
Norway angered Israel when it recognised the Palestinian state, together with Spain and Ireland, last May, a move later followed by Slovenia.
In a nod to history, Wednesday’s meeting was held in the Oslo City Hall, where Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
The then-head of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the Israeli prime minister and his foreign minister were honoured for signing the Oslo Accords a year earlier, which laid the foundation for Palestinian autonomy with the goal of an independent state.
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