Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, Regional Cooperation Minister Issawi Freij and Knesset member Michal Rozin met Oct. 3 in Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. All three are members of the left-wing Meretz party.
The encounter was the second such meeting to take place between senior Israelis and Palestinians since the formation of the Bennett government. Defense Minister Benny Gantz had met with Abbas in Ramallah last August, in a first high-level Israeli meeting with the Palestinian leader in almost a decade. After their meeting, Gantz announced a series of goodwill gestures to aid the Palestinian Authority (PA). Horowitz, Freij and Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg had held a number of meetings with Palestinian counterparts and senior PA officials in recent months, for establishing cooperation in different domains, including the coronavirus pandemic.