PA, Hamas Working to Form Unity Gov’t

Local Editor

Rival Palestinian leaders from the West Bank and Gaza Strip have decided to form a government of national unity within the "next five weeks", officials said early on Wednesday.

The agreement, between members of the Palestinian Authority [PA] and Hamas, was reached following talks in Gaza City which began on Tuesday evening, a member of the PA said.
"There has also been progress on the holding of future elections and the composition of the PA," said the Palestinian official without giving further details.
Talks, which are taking place behind closed doors, are expected to continue throughout Wednesday.

It is not the first time that a national unity government has been announced by the rival factions, and on several previous occasions attempts to form an administration have collapsed.

Fatah, the PA's main component, and Hamas signed a reconciliation accord in Cairo in 2011 aimed at ending the political divide between Gaza and the Palestinian Authority-ruled West Bank.
But deadlines have come and gone without any progress in implementing provisions of the accord.
Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior figure in president Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, led the team which were greeted by Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh and the movement's deputy leader Mussa Abu Marzuq.

Haniyeh on Tuesday had earlier called for cementing Palestinian reconciliation "in order to form one government, one political system and one national program."
Ahmad said: "I am happy that the time has come to end divisions.
The latest announcement of a deal comes as US-brokered peace talks with Israel teeter on the edge of collapse.
The Palestinians met just a week before the end of a nine-month target originally set for an "Israeli"-Palestinian deal.

Hamas is strongly opposed to the Palestinian negotiations with "Israel".
"No Palestinian is speaking of an initiative to dismantle the Palestinian Authority," chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said on Tuesday.
"But "Israel's" actions have annulled all the legal, political, security, economic and operational aspects of the prerogatives of the Palestinian Authority."
US State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki criticized the threat as "extreme" and warned that any such move would affect American aid to the Palestinians.

On the Zionist entity's side, "Israeli" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the PA of endangering the so-called ‘peace' process.
"They need to decide... Do they want to dismantle themselves or to unite with Hamas? When they want ‘peace' with "Israel", they should let us know," he said.
"Israel" has taken a string of hostile steps since the Zionist entity refused last month to release the fourth and last group of Palestinian prisoners in line with an earlier agreement.

The PA responded by signing 15 international treaties, some of which may lay the ground for international legal action against the Zionsit entity.

A senior "Israeli" government official rejected Abbas's terms.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team