Italy’s Meloni hosts Abbas amid EU Palestinian statehood push: What we know
During his three-day visit to Italy, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Pope Leo XIV and is reportedly set to meet with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas used a three-day visit to Italy and the Vatican to assure European counterparts that the Palestinian Authority will implement long-promised political reforms as it eyes a key role in postwar governance of the Gaza Strip.
What happened: Abbas met Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Friday, receiving a red carpet welcome at her office. They discussed strengthening relations between the PA and Italy as well as the Gaza ceasefire deal and Israeli settler attacks in the occupied West Bank. Abbas described the PA's "difficult" financial situation, pointing to Israel's withholding of tax revenue, and "renewed" his request that Italy recognize a Palestinian state, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Israeli settlers regularly attack Palestinians in the West Bank and local church leaders have accused them of attacking Christian sites. Vatican News reported in June that Jewish settlers "set fires near the Byzantine Christian cemetery and at the Church of Al-Khader," noting the church, also known as St. George, is "one of the oldest and most venerated places of worship for Christians in Palestine."
Abbas also briefed Italian President Sergio Mattarella on the latest developments in Gaza and the West Bank and affirmed his commitment to reforms and “strengthening a democratic, unarmed Palestinian state” through “holding elections within one year after the end of the war, issuing a temporary constitution and enacting laws regulating political parties and elections,” per WAFA.
