Bethlehem – Ma’an/Agencies – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged President Mahmoud Abbas to immediately re-launch peace talks in a speech in Washington on Monday.

Netanyahu said Israel is "willing to make great concessions for peace but there is something I will never compromise on, and that is Israel’s security. We have to ensure that weapons do not flow into the West Bank - we cannot permit another Gaza in the heart of our country. What we want is durable peace."

"We should not place preconditions for holding talks, such preconditions have never been set in 16 years," he also said, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

"No Israeli government has been so willing to restrain settlement activity as part of an effort to relaunch peace talks," Netanyahu reportedly told an audience of thousands at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America.

Referring to Abbas by name, Netanyahu said, according to the newspaper, "let us seize the moment, let us relaunch peace talks immediately."

Abbas last Thursday said that he intends to step down, citing the US’ failure to convince Israel to abide by previous agreements to halt the expansion of settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law.

US President Barack Obama’s administration recently appeared to back down from its calls earlier in the year for Netanyahu to totally freeze settlement construction as a precondition for renewed peace talks.

The speech was reportedly briefly interrupted by a woman protester demanding an end to Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. "Peace to Israel, peace to Palestine," she shouted, according to reports, before being removed from the auditorium.

The Israeli leader, the head of a right-wing coalition that came to power in March, also addressed the vote in the UN General Assembly last week on the Goldstone report that accuses Israel and Palestinian fighters of war crimes in Gaza.

The General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to urge Israel and Palestinian officials to launch their own investigations into allegations of violations during Israel’s three-week attack on Gaza last winter.

Netanyahu thanked Obama for "resolutely opposing this twisted UN resolution," and praised the US congress for passing its own resolution condemning the Goldstone report.