Abbas says he’ll discuss elections with Hamas, other factions

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas says today that he will discuss plans for new parliamentary elections with all factions, including longtime rivals Hamas.

Meeting with senior Palestinian leaders in Ramallah in the West Bank, Abbas renews a pledge to hold the polls — the first since 2006 — but without giving a timeframe.

He announces 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 says 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 Islamist terror group seized Gaza and threw out Abbas’s forces, which did retain 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.

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

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

Meanwhile, Abbas also confirmed the PA had received today NIS 1.5 billion ($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 said that the money it was withholding corresponds to what the PA pays Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons, or their families.

— AFP