Abbas rejects Trump's peace plan for resolving Israeli-Pales

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday reiterated that the Palestinians reject US President Donald Trump's upcoming peace plan for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Addressing the opening session of the four-day meeting of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the parliament in exile of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Abbas said that the Palestinians believe that the US cannot be a peace sponsor of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process due to its biased pro-Israeli position.

The PNC meeting, the first since 2009, was convened to discuss the strained ties with Israel and the US following Trump's decision to recognize the disputed holy city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, as well as the internal Palestinian reconciliation between Abbas's Fatah party and the Islamic Hamas movement that has controlled Gaza Strip since 2007.

Trump is formulating a new peace plan for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict following his Jerusalem decision and his order to relocate the US embassy in Israel from Tel Avivi to Jerusalem in May.

Abbas, also chairman of PLO executive committee, denounced the upcoming Trump's plan as "an end to the peace process in the Middle East."

Abbas reiterated that there will be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians without Jerusalem as capital of the future Palestinian state.

He added that "there will be no Palestinian state without the Gaza Strip and there will be no state in Gaza only."

PNC Speaker Salim Za'noon chaired the opening ceremony of the PNC meeting on Monday, by playing the Palestinian national anthem and saluting the Palestinians killed in the conflict with Israel.

Za'noon called for holding general elections to elect the new parliament and president, while urging Hamas to immediately end the 11-year internal Palestinian division.