Fatah 'surprised' by Palestinian groups' concerns over President Abbas decision to form new government


'The leadership of Hamas is disconnected from reality and the Palestinian people,' says Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

Ikrame Imane Kouachi |16.03.2024 -

RAMALLAH, Palestine

The Fatah movement of President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday expressed "surprise" at Palestinian groups voicing concerns about the formation of a new government led by Mohammad Mustafa without national consensus.

The Fatah said in a statement that “the leadership of Hamas is disconnected from reality and the Palestinian people.”

“It has not yet sensed the extent of the catastrophe that our oppressed people are experiencing,” the statement added.

The party expressed "surprise and disapproval at Hamas' talk of exclusivity and division."

“President Mahmoud Abbas has the right, under the Basic Law, to do everything that is in the interest of the Palestinian people,” the party said, adding that “assigning Mohammad Mustafa to form the government falls within the core of the president's political and legal responsibilities."

“The priority of all Palestinians today is to stop the war immediately, prevent displacement, provide relief to our afflicted people, rebuild the Gaza Strip, end the division, and reunify the Palestinian homeland,” it said.

Earlier on Friday, several Palestinian groups condemned President Abbas' announcement of a new government, fearing it would further divide the nation.

The Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and National Initiative groups issued a joint statement in which they questioned the feasibility of replacing one prime minister with another "from the same political environment."

"Taking individual decisions and engaging in superficial and empty steps such as forming a new government without national consensus only reinforces the policy of unilateralism and deepens division," the statement said.

On Thursday, Abbas appointed Mustafa as prime minister and asked him to form a new government.

Even though the prime minister-designate is not a member of the Fatah movement, he is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee.

Israel has waged a retaliatory offensive on Gaza since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. The offensive has killed over 31,500 victims and injured more than 73,500 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Palestinian enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

About 85% of Gazans have been displaced by the Israeli onslaught amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in an interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi

Fatah hits back at criticism of new PM by Hamas, other Palestinian groups

By

 AFP

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party hit back at criticism on Friday by Hamas and other factions over his appointment of a new prime minister they said could deepen divisions as the war with Israel in Gaza rages.

Abbas appointed Mohammed Mustafa, a long-trusted adviser on economic affairs, as prime minister on Thursday and tasked him with forming a new government. 

But the factions said in a statement Friday that “making individual decisions, and engaging in formal steps that are devoid of substance, like forming a new government without national consensus, is a reinforcement of a policy of exclusion and the deepening of division”. 

Such steps point to a “huge gap between the (Palestinian) Authority and the people, their concerns and their aspirations,” they said. 

The other signatories were Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group in Gaza, the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party which seeks a third way between Fatah and Hamas. 

Mustafa replaces Mohammed Shtayyeh, who resigned less than three weeks ago citing the need for change after the Hamas attack of October 7 triggered war with Israel in Gaza. 

He accepted the appointment and said in a letter to Abbas published on Friday he was “well aware of the severity of the… dire circumstances that the Palestinian people are going through”. 

Fatah hit back at Hamas late Friday, accusing the Islamist movement in a statement of “having caused the return of the Israeli occupation of Gaza” by “undertaking the October 7 adventure”. 

This led to a “catastrophe even more horrible and cruel than that of 1948”, a reference to the displacement and expulsion of some 760,000 Palestinians from their lands at the creation of Israel, they said.

“The real disconnection from reality and the Palestinian people is that of the Hamas leadership,” said Fatah, accusing Hamas of not having itself “consulted” the other Palestinian leaders before launching its attack on Israel.

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli figures. 

The retaliatory Israeli military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 31,490 people, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. 

Mustafa, 69, now faces the task of forming a new government for the Palestinian Authority, which has limited powers in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Control of the Palestinian territories has been divided between Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip since 2007.

Analysts have said Mustafa’s closeness to Abbas would limit chances for major reform of the Palestinian Authority. 

The United States and other powers have called for a reformed Palestinian Authority to take charge of all Palestinian territories after the war ends. 

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has rejected post-war plans for Palestinian sovereignty.