Hamas says it is willing to dissolve its Gaza administration, 10 years after it fought a bloody war with Fatah

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This article is more than 1 year old

Hamas has agreed to hold talks with the rival Fatah movement, dissolve the Gaza administrative committee and hold general elections, in a deal to end their long-running feud in the Palestinian territories, the group has said in a statement.



The last Palestinian legislative election was held in 2006, when Hamas won a surprise victory that laid the ground for a political rupture. The group fought a short civil war with the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip in 2007, and since then Hamas has governed the territory.

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Numerous attempts since 2011 to reconcile the two movements and form a power-sharing unity government in Gaza and the West Bank have failed. They agreed to form a national reconciliation government in 2014, but Hamas’s shadow government has continued to rule Gaza.

A senior Fatah leader, Mahmoud Aloul, welcomed the pledge on Sunday but told Voice of Palestine radio: “We want to see that happening on the ground before we move to the next step.”

Hamas said in its statement that it agreed to dissolve the administration running Gaza, allow the reconciliation government to carry out its duties in the territory, to hold elections and enter into talks with Fatah.

Egypt has been brokering talks with Fatah to implement a deal signed in Cairo with Hamas in 2013 to end the dispute and form an interim government before elections.

In July this year it emerged Hamas was seeking a rapprochement with the Palestinian leader once regarded as its greatest enemy, as the Islamist group faces unprecedented challenges from all sides.

Hamas’s leadership held talks with Mohammed Dahlan – the exiled former Fatah leader in Gaza whose supporters Hamas defeated in the 2007 civil war – in the hope he could persuade Egypt to come to the aid of Gazans struggling under Israel’s decade-long economic blockade.

Hamas’s position has been weakened by developments in the region, including Saudi-led moves against Qatar, once a major financial contributor to Gaza.

The group is also under further pressure from an aggressive policy implemented by Abbas, who governs in the West Bank. In June he asked Israel to significantly cut its electricity supply to Gaza’s 2 million residents.

The electricity crisis comes on top of Gaza’s many other woes. Abbas has also cut the salaries of thousands of former Palestinian Authority employees, many his supporters, who he had instructed not to work for the Hamas government.

Israel’s increasing restrictions on exit permits for Gaza residents, an escalating sewage crisis that is contaminating the strip’s beaches and high levels of unemployment are all contributing to a mounting sense of exhaustion.

Some polls show that if parliamentary elections were held now, Hamas would win them in both Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the seat of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.

Abbas, 82, is backed by the west and now 12 years into what was to be a four-year term. He is an unpopular leader according to opinion polls. He has no clear successor and there are no steps being taken toward organising a presidential election.</s>CAIRO/RAMALLAH (Reuters) - Hamas has agreed to dissolve the administration that runs Gaza, it said on Sunday, a major step towards handing control of the enclave to a Palestinian unity government after a decade of bitter rivalry with President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Islamist group, which has ruled Gaza since a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007, said it had taken “a courageous, serious and patriotic decision to dissolve the administrative committee” that runs the territory of 2 million people, and hand power to some form of unity government.

Reunification a decade after Hamas and Abbas’s secular Fatah movement battled for control of Gaza may hinge on whether complex issues related to power-sharing - which stymied reconciliation bids in the past - can be resolved.

Abbas welcomed Hamas’ move - a result of talks mediated by Egypt - and said he would convene the Palestinian leadership for discussions upon his return from New York where he was attending the U.N. General Assembly.

The development would “enable the formation of a national reconciliation government to work in the Gaza Strip and hold ... elections,” he said in a statement on official news agency WAFA.

Earlier, a Palestinian government spokesman said Cairo’s mediation had presented a “historic opportunity” that could help Palestinians toward full statehood.

But Fatah said it still needed clarification from Hamas on the handing over of government ministries in Gaza and control of the enclave’s border crossings with Israel and Egypt.

FILE PHOTO: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stands during a reception ceremony for Jordan's King Abdullah II in the West Bank city of Ramallah, August 7, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman/File Photo

Hamas and Fatah agreed in 2014 to form a national reconciliation administration but could not agree on the details. A unity government formed after Hamas won the last Palestinian general election, in 2006, was short-lived.

Aiming to pressure Hamas to relinquish control of Gaza, Abbas cut payments to Israel for the electricity it supplies to the enclave, leading to power provided for less than four hours on some days, and never more than six hours a day.

Azzam Al-Ahmad, who headed Fatah’s delegation to the talks in Cairo, told WAFA: “This step will enhance the unity of the Palestinians and end ugly division.”

The two parties did not meet at the talks which took the form of shuttle-diplomacy with Egyptian officials mediating. Ahmad said the two sides planned to meet face-to-face but gave no date. Other Palestinian factions would join the talks later to discuss practical steps to implement the agreement, he added.

Mending fences with Western-backed Abbas would be another step in Hamas’ diplomatic push to improve relations with its neighbor Egypt, which has kept its frontier with Gaza largely closed and accused the group in the past of aiding Islamist militants in Egypt’s Sinai desert, something Hamas denies.

The United Nations’ envoy welcomed Sunday’s news.

“All parties must seize this opportunity to restore unity and open a new page for the Palestinian people,” U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement, adding that the U.N. was ready to assist the talks in order to alleviate hardship in Gaza.

FILE PHOTO: A member of the Palestinian security forces, loyal to Hamas, stands guard as men set up a barbed wire on the border with Egypt, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, August 24, 2017. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo

Mladenov thanked Egypt for its “tireless efforts in creating this positive momentum.”

Some opinion polls have showed that if parliamentary elections were held now, Hamas would win both in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the seat of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.

Abbas, 82, is 12 years into what was meant to be a four-year term as president and opinion polls show him to be unpopular. He has no clear successor and no new presidential election appears imminent.</s>Hamas, which governs Gaza, says it is ready to begin talks with the Abbas administration to dissolve its administrative committee and hold an election as part of a deal brokered by Egypt. A Fatah official called the statement "positive and promising."In a statement posted on its website,As a step aimed at achieving national unity, the group, considered terrorist by Israel and some other states, has "invited the reconciliation government to come to the Gaza Strip to exercise its functions and carry out its duties," the statement says.The statement was greeted as a "positive" development by the deputy head of the ruling Fatah movement, Mahmoud Al-Alul."The news that Hamas is dissolving the so-called administrative committee in the Gaza Strip is positive and promising," he told the Voice of Palestine radio station.On Monday, Hamas announced it wanted to "hold meetings with Fatah in Cairo immediately" to achieve a reconciliation agreement, the Jerusalem Post noted in their report. On Wednesday, Fatah saidFatah Central Committee member Azzam al-Ahmad told official PA radio.Hamas and Fatah delegations have been in Cairo since Friday to negotiate an agreement proposed by the militant Palestinian faction which has controlled Gaza for a decade.when Hamas seized power in Gaza while the West Bank territories fell under Fatah's control. Since then, all attempts to reconcile the two groups and form a Palestinian power-sharing government have stalled.Hamas and Fatah had previously signed a reconciliation deal in Cairo in 2011. The agreement was meant to have paved the way for legislative and presidential elections, but it stalled because of disagreements over who the prime minister would be. In February 2012, the sides signed the Doha agreement where they agreed on a joint political platform and on a truce with Israel. That process also fizzled out, this time over the issue of a joint elections scheme.In May 2012, Hamas and Fatah signed the Cairo accord reaffirming their commitment to a new unity government and agreed to begin work on holding elections. That, however, did not take hold either, and the process practically hit a two-year roadblock.In April 2014, the two factions signed yet another reconciliation agreement, vowing to see a unity government formed within five weeks. They also promised to hold presidential and parliamentary elections within 6 months.However,Netanyahu also slapped new sanctions on the Palestinians.The work of the Palestinian unity government was, as a result, severely impeded, and forced Hamas and Fatah to meet in Cairo in September 2014, where they agreed on the tasks and responsibilities of any new government. Elections initially planned for the end of 2014 have been put off indefinitely. Meanwhile, peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority collapsed in April 2014.emphasizing that Palestinian unity is necessary in order to have meaningful discussions with Israel on a two-state solution. "We are trying to reconcile those who live and work in the Gaza Strip with those in the West Bank and Mahmoud Abbas' administration," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted earlier this month during a three-day visit to the Middle East."We are in contact with Hamas and Fatah to get them to resume implementation of the agreements reached not long ago, to unite under the single roof of the Ramallah administration and to hold general presidential and parliamentary elections."</s>Palestinian Islamist Hamas group said on Sunday it has dissolved its administration that runs Gaza and agrees to hold general elections in order to end a long-running feud with President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement. The last Palestinian legislative election was held in 2006 when Hamas scored a surprise victory, which laid the ground for a political rupture. Hamas and Fatah fought a short civil war in Gaza in 2007 and since then Hamas has governed the small coastal enclave.

Numerous attempts since 2011 to reconcile the two movements and form a power-sharing unity government in Gaza and the West Bank have so far failed. Hamas and Fatah agreed in 2014 to form a national reconciliation government, but despite that agreement, Hamas’s shadow government has continued to rule the Gaza Strip. Hamas said in a statement on Sunday that it has dissolved its shadow government, that it will allow the reconciliation government to operate in Gaza and that it agrees to hold elections and enter talks with Fatah.

Mahmoud Aloul, a senior Fatah official welcomed cautiously Hamas’s position. “If this is Hamas statement, then this is a positive sign,” he told Reuters. “We in Fatah movement are ready to implement reconciliation.” Hoping to pressure Hamas to relinquish control of Gaza, Abbas has cut payments to Israel for the electricity it supplies to Gaza. This means that electricity has often been provided for less than four hours a day, and never more than six.

Representatives for Abbas, who is in New York ahead of the UN General Assembly this week, could not be reached for comment, nor could Fatah representatives presently in Egypt, which has been hosting talks with Hamas. Some polls show that if parliamentary elections were held now, Hamas would win them in both Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the seat of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.

The Western-backed Abbas, 82, is now 12 years into what was to be a four-year term and is an unpopular leader according to opinion polls. He has no clear successor and there are no steps being taken toward a presidential election any time soon.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s>Palestine's Hamas group has agreed to talks with rival Fatah movement, to dissolve the Gaza administrative committee and hold general elections, the group said in a statement on Sunday.

CAIRO: Palestine's Hamas group has agreed to talks with rival Fatah movement, to dissolve the Gaza administrative committee and hold general elections as a way to implement a deal to end their long-running feud, the group said in a statement on Sunday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Western-backed Palestine Authority, controlled by Fatah, fought a war with Hamas over Gaza in 2007, which led to Hamas taking over.

Attempts to reconcile the two and form a power-sharing unity government in Gaza and the West Bank have failed.

Hamas said in its statement that it agreed to dissolve administration running Gaza, allow the reconciliation government to carry out its duties in the territory, to hold elections and enter talks with Fatah.

Egypt has been brokering talks with Abbas's Fatah group to implement a deal signed in 2011 in Cairo with Islamist Hamas to end their dispute and form an interim government before elections.

With the prospect of a Middle East peace initiative by a new U.S. Trump administration more sympathetic to Israel, Abbas has put pressure on Hamas, including not paying Israel for electricity for Gaza territory and cutting salaries for civil servants there.</s>A young Palestinian takes part in a Hamas rally to show solidarity with Al-Aqsa mosque, in Gaza City July 27, 2017. — Reuters pic CAIRO, Sept 17 — Palestine’s Hamas group has agreed to talks with rival Fatah movement, to dissolve the Gaza administrative committee and hold general elections as a way to implement a deal to end their long-running feud, the group said in a statement today.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Western-backed Palestine Authority, controlled by Fatah, fought a war with Hamas over Gaza in 2007, which led to Hamas taking over.

Attempts to reconcile the two and form a power-sharing unity government in Gaza and the West Bank have failed.

Hamas said in its statement that it agreed to dissolve administration running Gaza, allow the reconciliation government to carry out its duties in the territory, to hold elections and enter talks with Fatah.

Egypt has been brokering talks with Abbas’s Fatah group to implement a deal signed in 2011 in Cairo with Islamist Hamas to end their dispute and form an interim government before elections.

With the prospect of a Middle East peace initiative by a new US Trump administration more sympathetic to Israel, Abbas has put pressure on Hamas, including not paying Israel for electricity for Gaza territory and cutting salaries for civil servants there. — Reuters</s>Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Sunday that it is ready to dissolve the committee ruling Gaza, and hold a general election for the first time since 2006. Hamas added that it was also willing to hold talks with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’ movement, Fatah, to end a decade-long split, AFP reported.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniya agreed to Fatah’s demands of dissolving the committee and getting ready for elections and negotiations during talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo last week, a Hamas official said. Hamas has now called on the Palestinian government “to come to Gaza to exercise its functions and carry out its duties immediately”.

The Gaza Strip, which has about two million people, has been plagued with deteriorating humanitarian conditions and unemployment. Hamas had turned to Egypt for assistance, which, in turn, has put pressure on it to reconcile with Palestine.

Fatah welcomed the statement, and said a bilateral meeting with Hamas would be organised soon. “There will be tangible practical steps in the next few days, starting with the Palestinian national unity government resuming its work according to law in Gaza as it does in the West Bank,” Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad said.

The last legislative election was held in 2006, which Hamas won. Hamas and Fatah then fought a civil war in Gaza in 2007. Since then, Hamas has governed the small coastal enclave. Abbas, who rules the autonomous enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has remained in office for years without a re-election though his term was meant to end in 2009.

Numerous attempts to reconcile have failed, including one in 2014, when Hamas and Fatah had agreed to form a national government to rule both Gaza and the West Bank unitedly.

Since 2007, Israel and Egypt have maintained a land and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip to prevent attacks. Hamas is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the United States, European Union, United Kingdom and other powers.</s>Hamas said on Sunday it had agreed to steps toward resolving a decade-long split with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah, announcing it would dissolve a body seen as a rival government and was ready to hold elections.

The statement comes after Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian officials last week, and with the Gaza Strip run by the Palestinian Islamist movement facing a mounting humanitarian crisis.

Hamas said it had agreed to key demands made by Fatah: dissolving the so-called "administrative committee" created in March, while saying it was ready for elections and negotiations toward a unity government.

It called on the Palestinian Authority government based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank "to come to Gaza to exercise its functions and carry out its duties immediately". Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh agreed to take such steps in talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo last week, a Hamas official has told AFP.

It was unclear, however, whether the steps would result in further concrete action toward ending the deep division with Fatah. Hamas for now continues to run a de facto separate administration in the Gaza Strip and is in charge of the security forces there.

Previous attempts to resolve the split have repeatedly failed. Abbas’s Fatah welcomed the announcement, saying it followed "extensive meetings" between its own representatives and Egyptian intelligence officials.

Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad said a bilateral meeting with Hamas would be organised to begin working out a way forward. "There will be tangible practical steps in the next few days, starting with the Palestinian national unity government resuming its work according to law in Gaza as it does in the West Bank, in order to continue its efforts to relieve the suffering of our people in the strip and work towards lifting the unjust blockade," Ahmad told official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli blockade for around a decade, while its border with Egypt has also remained largely closed in recent years. Abbas is currently in New York for the UN General Assembly meeting, where he is set to speak on Wednesday. —</s>Hamas, the de facto ruling party of the Gaza Strip, has pledged to dissolve its administrative committee that runs the besieged coastal enclave and expressed readiness to hold general elections, in a bid for reconciliation with the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA).

A statement from Hamas movement said the decision came in response to recent diplomatic efforts by Egypt to reconcile the rival factions, while PA President Mahmoud Abbas has been calling on Hamas to end the administrative committee, relinquish control of the small territory to the PA, and hold presidential and legislative elections.

Hamas and the Fatah-led PA have been embroiled in a more than a decade-long conflict since 2006, when Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections and a bloody conflict between the two groups broke out.

 Despite numerous attempts at reconciling the groups, Palestinian leadership has repeatedly failed to follow through on promises of reconciliation and holding of long-overdue elections, as both movements have frequently blamed each other for numerous political failures.

The Hamas movement said Sunday it has dissolved its administrative committee — formed earlier this year to the outrage of the PA, agrees to hold general elections for the first time since 2006, enter talks with Fatah, and allow the national reconciliation government to operate in Gaza.

Hamas signed the reconciliation agreement with the PLO in April 2014, which was to pave the way for a general election by the end of 2014. However, a devastating 50-day Israeli attack on Gaza that year, as well as a dispute over payment of the salaries of tens of thousands of Hamas security forces, first blocked progress on the deal towards reconciliation.

The Palestinian political crisis has since only continued to worsen, and Hamas said it formed the committee after the consensus government failed to take responsibility for Gaza’s administration. The PA alleges that Hamas is attempting to form a “shadow government” to run Gaza independent of the West Bank.

In recent months, the PA has been also been accused of deliberately sending the impoverished Gaza Strip further into a humanitarian catastrophe — by slashing funding for Israeli fuel, medicine, and salaries for civil servants and former prisoners — in order to wrest control of the territory from Hamas.

Last month, Abbas threatened to undertake further repressive measures against the impoverished territory should Hamas not unconditionally abide by the PA’s demands to end the administrative committee, relinquish control of the enclave to the PA, and hold presidential and legislative elections.

Following Hamas’ acceptance of these key conditions on Sunday, senior Fatah official Mahmoud Aloul told Reuters news agency that he welcomed cautiously Hamas’s position. “If this is Hamas statement, then this is a positive sign,” he reportedly said. “We in Fatah movement are ready to implement reconciliation.”

 Fatah Central Committee member Azzam al-Ahmed also welcomed Hamas’ decision to dissolve the administrative committee, he told PA-owned Wafa news agency.

Al-Ahmed, who is currently in Cairo for Egyptian-led reconciliation talks with Hamas, told Wafa that a lengthy meeting was held between the Fatah delegation in Cairo with the head of the Egyptian intelligence service, Minister Khaled Fawzi, in which they reviewed the continuous efforts exerted by Egypt to end the Palestinian internal split.

Al-Hamad confirmed reports that the Fatah delegation met with the Hamas leadership, and “hailed Hamas’s call for the unity government to resume its normal work in Gaza as well as its approval to hold presidential and legislative elections,” according to Wafa’s report.

The Fatah official also said that there will be a bilateral meeting between Fatah and Hamas officials followed by a meeting of all the Palestinian factions that signed the May 2011 reconciliation agreement “in order to begin practical steps to implement the deal,” and expressed hope that the coming days would “witness tangible practical steps,” Wafa said.

Nickolay Mladenov, United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, also released a statement welcoming Hamas’ announcement. “I welcome the recent statement by Hamas announcing the dissolving of the Administrative Committee in Gaza and agreement to allow the Government of National Consensus to assume its responsibilities in Gaza,” he said.

“I commend the Egyptian authorities for their tireless efforts in creating this positive momentum. All parties must seize this opportunity to restore unity and open a new page for the Palestinian people,” the UN envoy continued. “The United Nations stands ready to assist all efforts in this respect. It is critical that the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza, most notably the crippling electricity crisis, be addressed as a priority.”

The development also came after head of the Hamas movement’s politburo Ismail Haniyeh and other high-ranking Hamas members met with Egyptian intelligence officials in Cairo last week, with talks focusing on a readiness to work toward national unity.

Hamas leadership told the Egyptians they would allow the Palestinian national reconciliation government to take charge of Gaza and carry out elections, so long as all Palestinian factions hold a conference in Cairo afterwards to elect a national government responsible for the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.

An Egyptian source close to the intelligence services told Israeli news daily Haaretz that Hamas is trying to prove to Egypt that it is not obstructing reconciliation and is responding to demands, hoping to reap the benefits if and when the talks falter on the PA’s part.

Hamas has sought to improve relations with Cairo in recent months by increasing cross border security, including the construction of the military buffer zone, in hopes that Egypt will ease its enforcement of Israel’s brutal, decade-long siege of the territory and open up the Rafah border crossing. A Fatah delegation sent by Abbas to Cairo also discussed Egypt’s efforts to reconcile the Palestinians on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Abbas arrived in New York on Sunday to take part in the proceedings of the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly. He is to meet US President Donald Trump there on Wednesday, ahead of the Palestinian president’s speech at the UN Thursday.</s>CAIRO, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Palestine's Hamas group has agreed to talks with rival Fatah movement, to dissolve the Gaza administrative committee and hold general elections as a way to implement a deal to end their long-running feud, the group said in a statement on Sunday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Western-backed Palestine Authority, controlled by Fatah, fought a war with Hamas over Gaza in 2007, which led to Hamas taking over.

Attempts to reconcile the two and form a power-sharing unity government in Gaza and the West Bank have failed.

Hamas said in its statement that it agreed to dissolve administration running Gaza, allow the reconcillation government to carry out its duties in the territory, to hold elections and enter talks with Fatah.

Egypt has been brokering talks with Abbas's Fatah group to implement a deal signed in 2011 in Cairo with Islamist Hamas to end their dispute and form an interim government before elections.

With the prospect of a Middle East peace initiative by a new U.S. Trump administration more sympathetic to Israel, Abbas has put pressure on Hamas, including not paying Israel for electricity for Gaza territory and cutting salaries for civil servants there. (Reporting by Mohamed El Sherif; writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
Hamas, through Egyptian-mediated talks, agrees to dissolve its Gaza administration, hold talks with the Fatah West Bank government, and hold elections for a Palestinian unity government.