An-Najah News - Secretary-General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Saeb Erekat, said yesterday that the Palestinian leadership will hold a meeting headed by President Mahmoud Abbas next Thursday, to create a full strategy to respond to the Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

Erekat said in an interview with Palestine radio,we held the American administration fully responsible for any steps taken by Israel in this regard. He said the statement made by the US ambassador to Israel David Friedman is an unprecedented insolence from a man promoting violence, murder and settlements.

He affirmed that the US administration, which includes Friedman and others like him, promotes settlements and aims at imposing facts on the ground. Erekat stressed that the US has taken 47 decisions against the Palestinians in the past two years, including relocating the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, closing the office of the PLO in Washington, halting US financial aid to the UNRWA, and writing off the Palestine refugees issue.