Israel top diplomat says Palestinian state creation not ‘realistic’

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Monday rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state as a “realistic” goal, amid the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

“I don’t think this position is realistic today and we must be realistic,” the newly appointed minister said in response to a question over the creation of a Palestinian state in exchange for a normalization of ties between Israel and Arab countries.

A Palestinian state would be “a Hamas state,” Saar added, referring to the Palestinian militant group in Gaza with which Israel has been at war for more than a year.

The normalization drive was a part of the 2020 Abraham Accords overseen by Donald Trump and the process could resume after he returns to the White House following last week’s US presidential election.

While he spoke in Jerusalem, Arab and Muslim leaders gathered in Saudi Arabia for a summit addressing the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel is also fighting Hamas ally Hezbollah.

The Saudi foreign ministry announced plans for the summit in late October during a meeting, also in Riyadh, of a new “international alliance” to press for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 43,603 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data from the territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, began firing on Israel after the October 7 attack.

The regular cross-border exchanges escalated in late September when Israel intensified its air strikes and sent ground troops into southern Lebanon.