DFLP leader won't attend PLO meeting in West Bank

The head of the Syria-based Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine will not travel to the West Bank to attend a meeting of the PLO's top policy-making body called for by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the leader's office in Damascus said Monday. Nayef Hawatmeh has decided not to attend the meeting scheduled in the West Bank city of Ramallah this week, the DFLP said in a statement. The DFLP statement said it "rejects any Israeli conditions" to the visit. On Sunday, Israel said it would allow Hawatmeh to return from exile to attend the PLO session. The DFLP carried out a 1974 raid on a school in the northern town of Ma'alot in which 24 Israelis were killed, most of them children.