‘Israel’s hidden agenda — to destroy Palestinian reconciliation’

Mohammad Shtayyeh, an adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, tells CNN’s “State of the Union” that the Israeli “aggression is totally unjustified.”

Speaking shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he says he was “very shocked” the prime minister expressed concern about civilian casualties as “80 percent of those killed in Gaza are civilians — women, children, old men.”

“These people have no place to go, even a UN school was bombarded by the Israeli army,” he says.

Shtayyeh adds that “Israel has a hidden agenda — to totally destroy” the Palestinian reconciliation agreement, according to Politico.

“President Abbas has actually come to terms with Hamas that they are accepting a two-state solution, they are ready for quietness, long-term quietness,” he says.

“We have formed a Palestinian agreed-upon government with the blessing of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority here was taking over Gaza, so we were designing a very well-orchestrated Palestinian reconciliation on the terms, on our terms, not on Hamas’s terms. The whole world welcomed the agreed-upon Palestinian government,” except for Israel, he says.

Shtayyeh says that Israel has exaggerated the rocket threat, as evident by the low numbers of Israeli casualties.