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No room for militias in Gaza, says Abbas

October 25, 2017 at 9:23 am

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attends a central committee meeting of Fatah Movement in Ramallah, West Bank on 13 September 2017 [Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency]

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday that he does not want “militias” in the blockaded Gaza Strip, which the Palestinian militant group Hamas handed it over to the Palestinian Accord Government a couple of weeks ago.

In an interview with China’s official Xinhua news agency, Abbas said that the Palestinian leadership “does not want to repeat the unsuccessful model of allowing militias to operate in Gaza,” referring to Hezbollah and Lebanon.

“There must be one authority [in Gaza]: one law and one gun,” Abbas said. “There is no room for the presence of militias.”

After it signed the agreement to concede its control over the Strip to the Fatah-dominated PA, Hamas has stressed that it did not discuss the issue of its arms with Fatah or Egypt the broker of the handover agreement. It reiterated it would never disarm.

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Abbas also told Xinhua that he rejected “all foreign interference in Palestinian internal affairs.” He stressed: “No one should interfere in our internal affairs because we do not interfere in the affairs of others… we ask that all assistance from other parts of the world be sent via the PA.”

He then commended the reconciliation agreement with Hamas. “The agreement has all the ingredients for reconciliation. Now we are moving into the implementation phase.”

Abbas accused Hamas, which won an overwhelming majority in the general Palestinian elections in 2006, of carrying out a coup in Gaza and causing a rift.

“The internal split that began 10 years ago following Hamas’ coup in Gaza has greatly harmed the Palestinian cause,” Abbas asserted.

“But now we are moving towards reconciliation,” he added. “Government ministers from the West Bank are visiting Gaza with a view to assuming responsibility for the enclave under the authority of a single state.”

On 12 October Hamas agreed to concede power in Gaza in favour of its rival Fatah in a landmark reconciliation agreement brokered and held in Cairo.