Abbas: US hospital in Gaza “is a fraud and a lie in order to cut Gaza off from the West Bank”
Official PA TV, broadcast of speech by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas at the opening of the international conference on corruption organized by the PA
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: "Regarding the US, we rejected the ‘deal of the century’ (i.e., US President Donald Trump’s as yet unpublished Middle East peace plan) from the beginning… [I said:] I cannot. [The Americans said:] Why can't you? I said: By Allah, I cannot sell Jerusalem. I said to them: This is Jerusalem. Who would sell it? Who would dare to say that Jerusalem is not ours? We and humanity [say]: Jerusalem, the capital of the religions, is ours. From a historical perspective it is ours, and it is forever ours. No one can take it from us. So how do you [Americans] speak about Jerusalem? We rejected the deal of the century and what is behind it and suffered blows, and we were prepared to suffer the stopping of the [American] aid. Imagine, they are establishing a hospital in Gaza on the pretext of aiding the residents of Gaza, and are denying aid to the hospitals in Jerusalem. Why, why? You are establishing a hospital in Gaza – of course it is a fraud and a lie in order to cut Gaza off from the West Bank and in order to complete the plan of the deal of the century. Accept it from me like this. They say it is for humanitarian purposes. No, it is not for humanitarian purposes. Afterwards, people came from them, from their dignitaries, [and] said that it is not from the American administration. So from whom, [we asked]. They said they are the NGOs. We said: Aren’t they Americans? They said: Americans. We said: We are against them, against the hospital. They came and said to us ‘In any case, be careful not to incite against us - and if not, by Allah we will do such and such.’ We said to them: We will incite and the TV will be active 24 hours [a day]. We will not be silent and it is necessary to go out in demonstrations day and night over this matter, and to raise our voices, and [the hospital project] will not pass and it should not pass – and whoever wishes can be angry or accede – we have taken a position on the matter of the hospital.
Regarding the Israelis, we have said and still say that if Israel decides to annex the [Jordan] Valley and the Dead Sea, I am telling you my opinion – that we must revoke all of the agreements between us and the Americans and the Israelis."