RAMALLAH — The Palestinian president said he has rejected a conditional Israeli offer to let Palestinian refugees in war-torn Syria resettle in the West Bank and Gaza, charging it would compromise their claims to return to lost homes in Israel. Palestinians in Syria are descendants of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948. Uprooted Palestinians and their offspring, now numbering several million people, cite UN resolutions in claiming the right to return to the property they left behind. Abbas said he asked UN chief Ban Ki-moon last month to seek Israeli permission to bring Palestinians caught in Syria's civil war to the Palestinian territories. The request came after fighting between Syrian troops and rebel fighters in Yarmouk, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. About half of the camp's 150,000 residents have fled, according to a UN aid agency. Abbas told a group of Egyptian scribes in Cairo late Wednesday that Ban contacted Israel on his behalf. Abbas said Ban was told Israel “agreed to the return of those refugees to Gaza and the West Bank, but on condition that each refugee ... sign a statement that he doesn't have the right of return (to Israel).” “So we rejected that and said it's better they die in Syria than give up their right of return,” Abbas told the group. Some of his comments were published Thursday by the Palestinian news website Sama. The Israeli condition linked to the resettlement offer made it impossible for Abbas to accept, said Ahmed Hanoun, an official in the refugee department of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the umbrella group Abbas heads. “I think the Israelis were not serious about this offer,” said Hanoun. “If they were, they would have endorsed the return of these people who live in misery, and not to blackmail them to relinquish their legal rights.” UN-mediated contacts between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas concerning the Palestinians in Syria marked the first time in years the two sides have dealt with a practical problem linked to the refugee issue. Bringing tens of thousands of Palestinians from Syria to the Palestinian territories would be a large burden, as Abbas' self-rule government is dealing with a severe financial crisis, while the Gaza Strip, run by his Hamas rivals, is impoverished and crowded. — AP
