Top aide to Palestinian Authority president lambastes Hamas for bringing destruction upon Gaza: ‘There will be a hard reckoning’
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said he is prepared to reform the beleaguered PA, but that it must be done in the context of a broader diplomatic initiative aimed at a two-state solution, which Israel opposes.
The US has pushed for a “revamped” PA to take over control of Gaza should Israel successfully remove the Hamas terror group from power there, saying the body must undergo anti-corruption reforms and take steps to foster free expression and engage civil society.
“The problem is not changing [Palestinian] politicians and forming a new government; the problem is the policies of the Israeli government,” Abbas told Reuters in comments published Monday, when asked about US proposals to revamp the PA so it is better prepared to govern Gaza after the war.
Israel has said the PA is unfit to take control of the Strip, citing its refusal to condemn Hamas terrorism as well as its ongoing payments to the families of jailed Palestinian terrorists and slain assailants.
The Authority is largely seen as ineffectual and corrupt. It has not held general elections since 2006, and presidential elections since 2005.
In his Reuters interview, Abbas again raised his years-old demand for the US to sponsor an international peace conference, akin to the 1991 Madrid summit aimed at advancing Palestinian statehood on the pre-1967 lines.
A senior US official told the news agency that the idea had been discussed with American allies, but indicated that it was not currently the administration’s main focus.
On Monday, a senior Palestinian official hit back at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for declaring that he would not allow Gaza to become “Hamastan or Fatahstan” after the war.
“We say to Netanyahu, it’s neither Fatahstan nor Hamastan. The name is Palestine, and it will remain Palestine, whether you like it or not,” PLO Executive Committee Secretary General and top presidential aide Hussein al-Sheikh tweeted.
On Tuesday a top aide to Abbas scolded Hamas for bringing destruction upon Gaza, saying “nobody will dodge their responsibility.”
“I tell our people, the price that Gaza has paid is not small, and this calls for an assessment. There will be a hard reckoning, but not now,” Mahmoud Habbash said in an interview with the Saudi news channel Al Arabiya.
“We will not get into details, but 100,000 people have been killed or injured in the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of thousands of homes have been destroyed, and the infrastructure was destroyed. We cannot let this pass, nobody can dodge their responsibilities.”
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 19,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the ensuing operation. The Gaza death toll cannot be independently verified and also includes those killed in failed Palestinian rocket launches. The IDF says it has killed over 7,000 Hamas operatives in Gaza.
Israel says it makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties. But it points to the Hamas practice of locating military infrastructure — including rocket launchers, weapons stores and command centers — next to, inside and underneath residential buildings, hospitals, schools and mosques.
Speaking to Reuters, Abbas reiterated his stance against using violence to advance the Palestinian cause.
“I am with peaceful resistance. I am for negotiations based on an international peace conference and under international auspices that would lead to a solution that will be protected by world powers to establish a sovereign Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” he said.
Abbas also expressed openness to the idea of the PA returning to govern Gaza if part of a broader two-state initiative, but added that “when we return, we’ll need resources,” because so much of the Strip has been destroyed in the fighting.
He reiterated his position that the US “bears the responsibility of what is happening” in Gaza because it is an “accomplice” of Israel. “America doesn’t force Israel to implement what it says,” he said.
The PA leader insisted that he has wanted to hold elections for years but will not do so without the inclusion of East Jerusalem residents. Ramallah says Israel refuses to allow balloting in the part of the city it annexed in 1980.
Analysts have long speculated that Abbas’s decision not to hold elections has been motivated by fears of Hamas gains at his expense. But the PA president insisted that this was not a factor, telling Reuters, “Whoever wins wins. These will be democratic elections.”
Abbas has yet to publicly condemn Hamas’s murderous rampage on October 7, in which 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists massacred 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and seized 240 hostages.
In a separate interview with Reuters Sunday, al-Sheikh, the PLO secretary-general, suggested that the methods employed by Palestinians in pursuit of statehood until now have failed to bear fruit.
“It is not acceptable for some to believe that their method and approach in managing the conflict with Israel was the ideal and the best,” he said. “After all this [killing] and after everything that’s happening, isn’t it worth making a serious, honest and responsible assessment to protect our people and our Palestinian cause?”
“Isn’t it worth discussing how to manage this conflict with the Israeli occupation?” he added.
Al-Sheikh said Hamas must engage in a “serious and honest assessment and reconsider all its policies and all its methods” once the fighting ends, while calling for the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem to come under PA rule. “There must be a single Palestinian government governing the Palestinian homeland,” he said.
Following meetings in Ramallah on Friday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said during a press conference that “we do believe that the Palestinian Authority needs to be revamped and revitalized, needs to be updated in terms of its method of governance, its representation of Palestinian people.”
Sullivan added: “That will require a lot of work by everybody who is engaged in the Palestinian Authority, starting with the president, Mahmoud Abbas, who I will go to see… And ultimately, it’s going to be up to the Palestinian people to work through their representation.”
A poll released last week showed soaring Palestinian support for Hamas in the West Bank, with 44 percent in the territory saying they support Hamas in general, up from just 12% in September. Of those Palestinians polled in the West Bank, 82% said they believe Hamas was “correct” to launch its October 7 onslaught, compared to only 57% in Gaza.
At the start of a press conference in Tel Aviv on Saturday, Prime Minister Netanyahu cited that survey in reiterating his opposition to the PA playing a role in Gaza following the war.
“As of now, the Palestinian Authority senior leadership simply refuses to condemn the massacre and some of them even praise it openly. They’ll control Gaza ‘the day after’? Haven’t we learned anything? As the prime minister of Israel, I will not allow that to happen,” he said.
Netanyahu said instead that “after the elimination of Hamas, the Gaza Strip will be demilitarized, will be under Israeli security control, and no element in it will either threaten us or educate its children to destroy us.”
He did not say who he envisions leading civilian affairs in the Strip.
Gianluca Pacchiani contributed to this report.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-says-willing-to-reform-pa-to-rule-gaza-but-israeli-policies-the-problem/.