"Any agreement which may be reached in negotiations will be put to a referendum," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

According to a cabinet briefing paper, Tel Aviv said the referendum bill was “urgent and important,” asking the parliament to quickly turn it into law.

Netanyahu added that it was important that “every citizen vote directly on an issue deciding the country’s future.”

An unnamed Palestinian official said on July 27 that the US-brokered talks between Israel and the PA will resume in Washington, on Tuesday, July 30.

That date has not been officially confirmed yet.

Talks between Palestine and Israel have been stalled since September 2010 over disagreements on Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

Over half a million Israelis live in settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem) more than four decades ago.

Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East al-Quds, and the Gaza Strip and are demanding Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories occupied in the Six-Day War of 1967.

The ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories is considered a major obstacle to efforts aimed at establishing peace in the Middle East.

The United Nations and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.

SHI/SHI