Unity with Hamas? Entire PA gov’t resigns

New Palestinian Authority will seek to form a government that includes Hamas, could allow terror group to maintain power in the Gaza Strip.

By World Israel News Staff

The entire Palestinian Authority government, including Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, officially submitted their resignations to PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, paving the way for a new Palestinian entity to potentially rule the post-war Gaza Strip.

In a statement to Palestinian Authority-controlled news outlet Wafa, Shtayyeh said that the new PA government would seek to form a government with the Hamas terror group and would continue its ongoing anti-Israel policies, presumably including pay-for-slay stipends for Palestinians convicted of perpetrating terror attacks against Jews.

“We will remain in confrontation with the occupation [Israel], and the Palestinian Authority will continue to struggle to establish the state on the lands of Palestine,” Shtayyeh told Wafa.

“I see that the next stage and its challenges require new governmental and political arrangements that take into account the emerging reality in the Gaza Strip, the national unity talks [with Hamas], and the urgent need for an inter-Palestinian consensus based on a national basis, broad participation, unity of ranks, and the extension of the Palestinian Authority’s sovereignty over the entire land of Palestine.”

Asharq News, an Arabic-language outlet based in the United Arab Emirates, reported that a new PA government could be formed as early as this week.

Israel has repeatedly stated that it will continue to maintain security control of the post-war Strip, but the U.S. has said that it expects a Palestinian government to assume leadership of the coastal enclave.

PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said that Abbas would accept the results of a future election which would allow Hamas to retain power in the Strip.

Ramallah is “prepared to hold general elections, and if Hamas wins, the president will hand over the Authority,” Abu Rudeineh told Al Arabiya News.