Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed hope on Wednesday that the Israeli parliamentary elections scheduled in April would bring a new leadership that believes in peace, WAFA News Agency reported.

Abbas made the remarks at a meeting of the Palestinian Forum for Peace and Freedom held in Ramallah, where he said the Palestinian hands will be extended to the elected Israeli leadership to achieve peace in the region.

"I believe in peace more than before and I don't want a war," Abbas said, adding that without a solution to the Palestinian issue "there will be no peace and security in the region and the entire world."

The Palestinian Forum for Peace and Freedom, which kicked off in January, has brought together lawmakers, academics and other notables in support of the two-state solution along the 1967 border.

"We were hoping that talks between us and the Israeli side would go on, but the Israeli extremism, which killed late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, wants to shed more blood of our children by keeping their assaults on our people," Abbas said.

Peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians have remained stalled since April 2014, when U.S.-sponsored negotiations broke down after nine months of futile efforts.

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