CAIRO, November 8. /TASS/. The Palestinian leadership will not accept any proposal that calls for separating the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, Mahmoud al-Habbash, an advisor to the Palestinian president, said.

"We reject the idea of separating Gaza from the West Bank," the Al-Qahera Al-Ihbariya TV channel quoted him as saying.

According to al-Habbash, the Gaza Strip "should not be isolated from the West Bank because if this happens, the Israeli authorities will be able to fully abandon the idea of creating a unified Palestinian state." "Both Gaza and the West Bank are Palestinian land," he stressed.

The presidential advisor added that "the Palestnians will continue to resist the [Israeli] occupation and will never agree to live under the Israeli authorities’ control forever." Al-Habbash noted that the current priority was "to put an immediate and complete end to Israel’s act of aggression against the residents of Gaza and the West Bank."

Tensions in the Middle East flared up again on October 7 after militants from the radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza and launched ground operations in the enclave, also carrying out air strikes on targets in the Strip, as well as on certain areas in Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.