Senior security officials recommend sanctions on PA’s Mahmoud Abbas, others – report

Senior officials in the security establishment recommend that Jerusalem place sanctions on Palestinian Authority leaders, as a response to the wave of Western countries recognizing a Palestinian state, Army Radio reports.

The proposed objects of sanctions reportedly include PA President Mahmoud Abbas, PA Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh, and others.

According to the report, the recommended sanctions include limits on the PA officials’ freedom of movement in the West Bank.

At the moment, the PA leaders not only travel freely around the territory, but do so with security provided by the Shin Bet.

The Israeli security officials have also recommended economic sanctions, for example on goods that their family members import from abroad, the report says.

“Steps like these [imposing sanctions on PA leaders] are unequivocally appropriate and correct. We can’t live with a situation in which leaders of the PA do irreversible damage to us on the international front, and at the same time receive privileges from Israel that, with the years, have become a norm,” officials are quoted as saying.

The Israeli security officials have not recommended any sanctions that would affect West Bank Palestinians more broadly, the report notes.

Additionally, they’ve recommended Israel wait until Abbas delivers his speech at the United Nations General Assembly today, to see whether he advocates unilateral measures, that Israel would oppose.

Abbas will deliver his speech remotely, after the Trump administration refused to issue him a visa.

On Monday, he addressed a UN summit on the two-state solution; the PA president praised the wave of statehood recognitions, and called for an end to the war in Gaza, the release of the hostages held by Hamas, the terror group’s disarmament, and for the PA to take control of the Strip as part of one Palestinian state.