Gaza City: The Palestinian National Authority cabinet met in the Gaza Strip for the first time in three years as its members began to take charge of ministries from Hamas, and said they would start talks next week on the contentious issue of security forces.
The government is “ready to take complete responsibility and extend its full control over Gaza, without exceptions,” Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said at the meeting. Leaders of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party will meet with Hamas negotiators in Cairo next week to discuss security and other controversial matters that were deferred so the handover process could start, Civil Affairs Minister Hussain Al Shaikh said.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday Israel would reject any reconciliation deal between the two leading Palestinian factions unless Hamas disarmed.
“We are not prepared to accept bogus reconciliations in which the Palestinian side apparently reconciles at the expense of our existence,” Netanyahu said in a statement, demanding that Hamas cut its ties to Tehran.
Convening the cabinet was the first step in efforts to reunite the Fatah-ruled West Bank with Gaza since Hamas seized control of the seaside territory in 2007. Bringing the two areas of Palestinian-ruled territory under one government could remove a key obstacle to negotiating peace with Israel.
Hamas agreed to cede control of Gaza as funds from abroad dried up and Abbas imposed sanctions that reduced government salaries and cut electricity to three hours a day. The moves deepened the hardships facing Gaza, which has been battered by a blockade and destructive wars with Israel.
The breakthrough came last month in talks brokered by Egypt, which sent a delegation led by intelligence chief Khalid Fawzi to Gaza for talks and ceremonies surrounding yesterday’s handover.
Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi sponsored the negotiations in part because he wants Hamas’s cooperation in deterring attacks on Egyptian soldiers in the northern Sinai Peninsula bordering Gaza. Mohammad Dahlan, the former Palestinian security chief in Gaza and an Abbas rival, helped broker the deal with new Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, who grew up in the same refugee camp as Dahlan.
The Palestinian cabinet’s initial work will focus on providing more electricity and water for Gaza’s 1.9 million residents and funding construction projects, spokesman Yousuf Al Mahmoud said at a press conference.
Hamas is facing international demands to surrender its weapons and recognise Israel’s right to exist as part of any peace agreement. The Trump administration welcomed Hamdallah’s visit to Gaza, while indicating it would scrutinise the developing relations between PNA and Hamas.
“The United States stresses that any Palestinian government must unambiguously and explicitly commit to non-violence, recognition of the State of Israel, acceptance of previous agreements and obligations between the parties, and peaceful negotiations,” Jason Greenblatt, the White House special representative for international negotiations, said in a statement Monday.
Gaza Wars
US President Donald Trump recently sent his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, to the region in a bid to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. But so far Trump has resisted any expression of support for Palestinian statehood, breaking with more than a decade of US policy and frustrating the Palestinian leadership.
Gaza has been a frequent battleground over the past decade, during which Hamas has fought three wars with Israel and thousands of Gazans have been killed. Close to 100 Israelis have been killed. Gaza is fenced in by heavily-patrolled barriers on three sides bordering Israel and Egypt.
