Morocco delays 'Abraham Accords' summit over 'provocative' Israeli acts

Morocco will delay a summit it is hosting between Israel and Arab states that have signed "Abraham Accords" peace pacts, amid rising strife in the occupied West Bank.

The decision to postpone the summit until after the summer comes after Israel decided to expand settlement-building in the occupied West Bank and after an Israeli raid on Jenin in which five Palestinians were killed.

Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said on Friday that the decision was partly over scheduling but also because of what he called "provocative and unilateral acts" that "undermine peace efforts in the region".

He condemned the Israeli army raid on Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, and rejected Israel's decision to expand settlements in occupied territory where Palestinians want to establish an independent state.

Israel said its operation in Jenin was intended to arrest two Palestinians suspected of attacks. It announced the decision to build 1,000 new houses in the Eli settlement in the West Bank in response to a Palestinian gun attack nearby.

Morocco has said it wants to see the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in the occupied east Jerusalem as part of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

'Failure follows failure'

The planned summit follows one held last year in Israel's Negev desert between Israel, Bahrain, Morocco, the UAE, the United States and Egypt, which agreed to peace with Israel in 1979.

Israel had previously announced that Morocco would host the forum in March, with Foreign Minister Eli Cohen saying other countries that do not have ties with Israel might also attend. A Cohen aide has blamed the delay on the difficulty of coordinating the schedule.

Yair Lapid, a former Israeli foreign and prime minister who was an architect of the forum when in power last year, said that "failure follows failure" with the current Israeli government.

"This is not how foreign policy should be conducted," said Lapid, who now heads the opposition.

Morocco is one of four Arab states alongside the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan that moved closer to Israel in 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords, a US-driven diplomatic initiative.

Rabat boosted ties with Israel and agreed to move towards full diplomatic relations in return for US recognition of its sovereignty over the territory of Western Sahara.