Tel Aviv, Israel — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declined to take a telephone call from US President Joe Biden during the latter’s visit to Israel on October 18, Israel’s state-run Kan Radio said.
Citing a source in Ramallah, the administrative center of the Palestinian West Bank where Abbas has his office, the news outlet reported that representatives from the Biden administration tried to set up a phone conversation between the two leaders on October 18, but Abbas turned the request down, TASS reported.
The radio station clarified that the sides nevertheless remain in contact.
Immediately after his visit to Israel, Biden had been expected to travel to neighboring Jordan for a four-party summit in Amman with Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II.
However, the meeting was canceled after an airstrike on the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. According to Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, the summit would not have been able to bring an end to the war in any event.
The White House stated that Biden intended to hold phone conversations with Sisi and Abbas.