Netanyahu: Abbas Must Choose Between Peace With Hamas or With Israel

Netanyahu tells Abbas to choose peace partner: Hamas or Israel (Reuters)

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cautioned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday over just-revived unity talks with Hamas, saying he had to choose between peace with Israel or its Islamist enemy.

Amplifying Netanyahu's warning, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Abbas's signature on a unity accord with Hamas would be tantamount to "signing the termination of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority".

Delegates from Hamas and Abbas's Fatah party-led Palestine Liberation Organisation held a fence-mending session on Tuesday in the Gaza Strip, their first since a 2007 conflict in which forces loyal to the Western-backed leader lost control of the enclave to the militant group, an opponent of peace with Israel.