Palestinian Authority president speaks for the first time, calls for end to aggression
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Reuters
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has met Jordan's King Abdullah II and called for "an immediate end to the comprehensive aggression against the Palestinian people".
It's the first time Abbas has publicly spoken since the surprise Hamas attack on Israel last Saturday morning.
According to a statement released by the president's office, Abbas rejected "practices related to killing civilians or abusing them on both sides".
The two leaders met in Amman to discuss "ways to stop the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and deliver aid and relief" to Gaza.
According to the statement, he also stressed that Palestinians "renounce violence and adhere to international legitimacy" and said that the targeting of civilians by both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants "contravenes morals, religion and international law".
Abbas, the head of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA), is a bitter rival of Hamas. The militant group took control of Gaza in 2007, ejecting forces loyal to the then-governing PA and Abbas’s Fatah movement after a violent rift.