Abbas says he’ll discuss elections with Hamas, factions but provides no timeline

A parliamentary ballot, which has not taken place since 2006, is regarded as impossible without improved ties between PA president’s Fatah and Gaza-based terror group

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting at the presidential compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah on October 6, 2019. (Abbas Momani/AFP)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting at the presidential compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah on October 6, 2019. (Abbas Momani/AFP)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that he would discuss plans for new parliamentary elections with all factions, including longtime rivals Hamas.

Meeting with senior Palestinian leaders in the PA’s administrative capital of Ramallah in the West Bank, Abbas renewed a pledge to hold the polls — the first since 2006 — but without giving a timeframe.

He announced that they had formed committees to “communicate with the election commission and factions such as Hamas and all factions, as well as with the Israeli authorities.”

He said any elections should take place in “the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.”

Hamas and Fatah have been at loggerheads since 2007, when the terror group seized Gaza and threw out Abbas’s forces, which retained control of the internationally recognized Palestinian government, based in the West Bank.

No parliamentary elections have been held since 2006, with the two sides trading blame.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting at the presidential compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on October 6, 2019. (Abbas Momani/AFP)

Multiple attempts at reconciliation have failed and analysts say new elections are impossible without improved relations.

Hamas said in a statement Saturday that it did not “know what Abu Mazen means by general election,” using the common nickname for Abbas.

The terror group said it had already committed itself to elections.

Abbas has previously pledged on multiple occasions to hold elections, but without any results.

Meanwhile, Abbas also confirmed the PA had received on Sunday $1.5 billion shekels ($430 million) from Israel — representing taxes that had been withheld from the Jewish state.

Israel in February decided to withhold around $10 million per month from revenues of some $190 million per month it collects on the behalf of the PA, triggering Abbas’s fury.

The money comes from customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through Israeli ports and constitutes more than 50 percent of the PA’s revenues.

Israel had said the money it was withholding corresponds to what the PA pays Palestinian security prisoners — some of them with blood on their hands — in Israeli jails, or their families.

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