Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will refuse to meet US Vice President Mike Pence later this month following Washington’s controversial policy shift on Jerusalem, an aide said yesterday, as protests gripped the Palestinian territories for a third straight day.
Retaliatory Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip killed two Hamas militants as unrest simmered over President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on Wednesday.
Four people have been killed and dozens wounded since Trump announced the move, which drew criticism from every other UN Security Council member at an emergency meeting on Friday.
“There will be no meeting with the vice president of America in Palestine,” Abbas’s diplomatic adviser Majdi al-Khaldi told AFP.
“The United States has crossed all the red lines with the Jerusalem decision.”
Egypt’s Coptic Pope Tawadros II also cancelled a meeting with Pence, with the church saying it “declines to receive” him in protest at Trump’s announcement which failed to take into account the “feelings of millions” of Arabs. 
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