Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas says only an Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories can bring peace to the Middle East, as the UAE and Bahrain signed normalization accords with the Israel.
"Peace, security and stability will not be achieved in the region until the Israeli occupation ends," he said in a statement after the signing in Washington of the deals, condemned by the Palestinians as a "betrayal" of their cause, news outlets reported on Wednesday.
Israel normalized relations with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates at a White House ceremony on Tuesday as President Donald Trump said similar US-brokered deals were close between the Jewish state and "five or six" other nations.
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the foreign ministers of Bahrain and the UAE sealed the historic agreements with a signing ceremony on a flag-decorated White House lawn.
Bahrain and the UAE are the first Arab nations to establish relations with Israel since Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 and Trump, who is hoping the deals will boost his reelection hopes, hailed it as a "historic day for peace in the Middle East".
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