ISTANBUL (AA)

The Arab League announced Wednesday that Israel had rejected a visit its Secretary-General Nabil Fahmy planned to make to the occupied Palestinian territories, in his first foreign trip since taking office.

The League said in a statement that 'Palestinian authorities informed the General Secretariat that the Israeli occupation authorities rejected a visit Fahmy intended to make Wednesday to the occupied Palestinian territories, in support of the Palestinian people's steadfastness, and to meet President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah,' in the center of the occupied West Bank.

It added that Fahmy 'chose to make the occupied territories his first foreign destination, given the centrality of the Palestinian cause,' stressing it 'will remain at the top of the priorities of the Arab world.'

Israel controls entry and exit from the occupied West Bank, including crossing points and bridges with Jordan, and imposes procedures and permits on the movement of Palestinians, foreigners, and official, media, and diplomatic delegations through these crossings.

The League stressed that 'Palestinians suffer a siege within their towns and cities, surrounded by settlements that are increasingly encroaching, and by roads used exclusively by settlers, and are exposed at any time to the brutality and terrorism of extremist settlers who enjoy the protection of the occupation state, and even its encouragement in many cases.'

According to a report by the Commission for the Resistance of the Wall and Settlements, a Palestinian official body, settlers committed 3,488 attacks during the first half of this year, including attacks on Palestinian villages, assaults on Palestinians, arson of homes, shootings, seizure of land, and establishment of settlement outposts, resulting in the deaths of 17 Palestinians.

The League emphasized 'the necessity of holding Israel accountable for its ongoing violations against Palestinians.'

It said that 'defending the two-state solution requires concrete and continuous actions from all countries supporting a just peace, in order to expose the practices of the occupation and strengthen the steadfastness of the Palestinian people, who face unprecedented repression and increasingly rampant and brutal violence.'

As of 19:00 GMT, no official comment had been issued by either the Israeli or Palestinian side on the matter.

At the beginning of July, Fahmy officially assumed his duties as Secretary-General of the Arab League, succeeding Ahmed Aboul Gheit, according to an official source.

Nabil Fahmy is the ninth Secretary-General of the Arab League since its founding in 1945, and the eighth from Egypt, except for the period when the League headquarters was moved from Cairo to Tunis in 1979, following former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's signing of a peace treaty with Israel.

Fahmy served as Egyptian Foreign Minister between June 2013 and July 2014, and also served as Egypt's ambassador to the United States between 1999 and 2008, and to Japan between 1997 and 1999.

His father, Ismail Fahmy, also served as Foreign Minister under Sadat between 1973 and 1977.