In a statement congratulating Biden and vice president-elect Kamala Harris, Abbas said he hoped to work with the incoming administration “to enhance the Palestinian-American relations and achieve freedom, independence, justice, and dignity for our people.”

Abbas heads the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, which broke ties with Trump’s administration, accusing it of being flagrantly pro-Israeli.

Trump cut funding to the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

He also rejected the notion that Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem should serve as the capital of a future Palestinian state, instead of recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided capital.”

Trump avoided criticising Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, breaking with decades of US policy that settlement expansion was an obstacle to peace.

In January, Trump unveiled a controversial Middle East peace

plan made without input from the Palestinians, who rejected it outright.

AFP