PLO’s Central Council kicks off 31st session in Ramallah amid Hamas criticism

The Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) kicked off its 31st session Sunday in the West Bank city of Ramallah under the shadow of a boycott by some Palestinian factions.

The two-day Central Council meeting, held under the title "Developing and activating the PLO, protecting the national project and popular resistance," will discuss Israeli settlement activity, especially in occupied Jerusalem, as well as the deadlocked peace process and other political and domestic issues, reported by the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

“We will not accept the continuation of the Israeli occupation and its colonial practices that perpetuate apartheid and settler terrorism," said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, speaking at the opening session of the meeting.

Commenting on rights group Amnesty International's recent report which described Israel as an apartheid state for the way it treats Palestinians, Abbas said it is an “important step” towards the reality of the Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.

Some Palestinian factions including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian National Initiative (Al-Mubadara), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and the Vanguard for the Popular Liberation War (As-Sa'iqa) have boycotted the meetings, arguing that they were held unilaterally without a national consensus.

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas criticized the meeting in a statement Friday.

“There is no legitimacy for any meeting that is held unilaterally, far from national consensus and the majority of the powers and factions and major influential Palestinian components are absent from it,” it said.