The central committee of the Fatah party on Friday stressed the need to maintain and strengthen Palestinian national reconciliation in order to address the challenges of rebuilding Gaza after more than 50 days of Israeli assault.
The committee also recommended in the meeting in Ramallah — which was presided over by president Mahmoud Abbas — that no Palestinian political should have the right to unilaterally decide to go to war, in an apparent jab at Hamas for its response to the Israeli offensive.
The Fatah leadership said it would seek to maintain the spirit of national unity which flourished during the Israeli military offensive against Gaza and was embodied by the Palestinian delegation to Cairo negotiations with Israel that comprised representatives of all parties.
The central committee also said that the national consensus government agreed upon earlier this year should be enhanced so it can play a serious role and offer services to the Palestinian people as a whole, with a focus on the urgently-needed reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
On the foreign policy front, the Palestinian leadership will push to implement the suggestion proposed by president Abbas to recruit international support for setting a timeline for ending the Israeli occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, Abbas’ official spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeina told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The central committee also applauded Egypt for the role it played to stop the war on Gaza, stressing that the Palestinians will never interfere in the internal affairs of any Arab country or other countries.
Furthermore, “the Palestinian people and their national leadership completely reject any foreign intervention in the internal Palestinian affairs and our independent decision.”
An April 23 agreement between Hamas and Fatah paved the way for the formation of a government of national unity for the first time in seven years, but Israel has strongly opposed the deal and severely targeted Hamas in the months that followed.
In June Israeli forces launched a massive offensive across the West Bank and arrested more than 600 Hamas-affiliated individuals, which was followed in July and August with a massive assault on the Gaza Strip that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians.
The political division between Fatah and Hamas began in 2007, a year after Hamas won legislative elections across the Palestinian territories but was subjected to a boycott by Israel and Western countries that left the economy in a fragile state.
(Ma’an – www.maannews.net)
