Israel rejects French-led Mideast peace conference

Israel will not participate in a French-led conference aiming to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's top adviser told French envoy Pierre Vimont on Monday.

"It was made clear to the French envoy that Israel will not participate in any international conference convened contrary to its position," Netanyahu's office said in a statement released after his diplomatic envoy Yizahak Molcho met with Vimont in Jerusalem.

"Promoting such a conference will make the possibility of advancing the peace process much less likely since it will allow Abbas and the Palestinian authority to continue avoiding the decision to enter into direct negotiations without preconditions," read the statement.

Vimont arrived in Israel to pursue French efforts to hold an international conference before the end of 2016, aiming to establish parameters for a peace deal in order to end the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians as well as to set a timetable for the implementation of such a deal.

Israel is concerned the conference may increase international pressure to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem which Israel occupied, along with the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast War.

The French peace initiative comes during an intense wave of violence in the West Bank and Israel, which has so far claimed the lives of at least 230 Palestinians and 34 Israelis since September 2015.

The last round of U.S.-brokered peace talks reached an impasse in April 2014 due to continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the unity government established by the Abbas-led Palestinian Liberation Organization and Hamas